“Em & Selma Go Griffin Hunting,” the fantasy short that has racked up awards and buzz since its premiere at Sundance earlier this year, has received support from two veteran genre filmmakers.
Under their Spooky Pictures label, Roy Lee (“Arms,” “Barbarian,” “It”) and Steven Schneider (“The Long Walk,” “Strange Darling,” “Late Night with the Devil”) have joined the short as executive producers.
Written and directed by Alexander Thompson, “Em & Selma Go Griffin Hunting” is set in an alternate Depression-era America of the 1930s and stars Pollyanna McIntosh (“The Walking Dead”) and Tony Award winner Milly Shapiro (“Hereditary”) as a mother-daughter duo who face off on a sacred rite of passage hunt involving mythical beasts.
The film received widespread industry praise for its unique visual style and tone. The filmmakers spent four years in post-production as Thompson directly oversaw a small team of hand-picked international visual effects artists to help bring the film’s main creatures to life. Since Sundance, he has played at nearly fifty festivals and won two dozen awards to date, most recently for Best Director at the 2025 FilmQuest Festival.
“In our time together in the industry, we have never seen anything like ‘Em & Selma Go Griffin Hunting,’” Lee and Schneider said. “Thompson has brought together unexpectedly disparate sources of inspiration to create a film that feels wholly original and singular in its vision, a rare feat for most feature films, let alone an 18-minute short. The craftsmanship and specificity of the world-building are phenomenal – we’re excited to help give the film the boost it deserves as awards seasons approach. We expect big things from Thompson and his team, and we We are happy to have been able to be where the journey began for this visionary writer/director.”
Thompson added, “The entire team is incredibly excited and grateful for Roy and Steven’s support. ‘Em & Selma’ was a half-decade obsession that taught me so many wonderful and painful lessons, and introduced me to a number of indispensable new collaborators that I can’t wait to continue to grow with. I’m honored that Roy and Steven are now part of a small group of daring souls who helped bring our strange little mother/daughter fable to an audience wider.”
“Em & Selma Go Griffin Hunting” is produced by Roger M. Mayer of Brooklyn Reptyle Productions, alongside executive producers Russell Sanzgiri and Zeus Kontoyannis of Zeus Pictures and Pierce Csurgo and Joseph Zentil of Strange Customs. Thompson is represented by IAG, Redshift Management and Myman Greenspan.
