First of all, we're glad to hold this interview with Dana and it's an honor for us. Tell us more about yourself, please, about your past in cinematic world and how did you come up with the idea to connect your life with this?

Okay, well, it was something that happened to me when I was 19, 20 years old. I was in Florida, putting together a band. And one night, the police put metal pipes from car to car and went down along the beach, Daytona Beach, in Florida and just moved down all the people that were sleeping on the beach and partying it was like a spring break and a lot of musicians were there and just street people and I was going to an audition in the morning and I saw what was going on. So I went, I mean, a couple of the guys helped the people that were hurt, injured and bleeding. And a bus pulls up with cops that, um, one of them, I had a run in with a couple of days earlier, they were beating up a, black kid, and I stopped them from doing it, and they told me to leave town and all this stuff. Very racist cops. The guy, the kid that they were beating up had just asked for directions from a white woman, and the police didn't like that. So anyway, so at the beach, then a bus pulls up with police. One of the cops that had put a gun to my head when I was helping the black kids, they started hitting me and two other guys and put us on a bus, put masks on our head, and brought us a couple hundred miles away to Georgia to a labor camp and brought us a couple hundred miles away to Georgia to a labor camp. So Midnight's Journey is about what happened before that at the camp and then afterwards also because there was a lot of corruption. There were high-ended people there, senators. A governor was involved, some mayors. And it's very similar to what's going on in America now. This was just on a smaller scale. It was like a precursor to what's happening now. And after they found out about the camp, at first they started doing prosecutions and indictments, and everything disappeared. So it was quite intense.


Thank you for sharing the story. You're not only talented, but you are also brave from the early 80s. And if we're talking about your film, what was the initial trigger to the story that you created?


Yes, so we turned one of the books for it. My initial thoughts were to do it as a limited series, a TV series, because there's so much that is involved that would be a lot to do into a movie. So we wrote some scripts. We have series decks and putting the script out there now. And we're getting a lot of success mostly in Europe because i think america is afraid of the subject from that especially now with what's going on so in europe it's much more popular and so where i'm at now is i'm trying to find a producer executive executive producer, to be able to turn into a series and funding, obviously. It's always about the money. But we're pretty much set. We have everything else, the scripts, like I said, TV series scripts, feature-length movie scripts. We have a series deck which explains each season, what's going on or how many episodes. And feature-length. each season, what's going on, or how many episodes. And future... We have an original theme song and a small teaser trailer. So that's the point that we're at now. Any suggestions for me?


For now, maybe in the end of the interview, we'll talk about that. And also, the work that you submitted to festival. Can you tell us more about your inspiration maybe some directors or are there any films that influenced your approach?


Yeah, it's really strange because I think once like a couple of festivals give you good reviews, then other ones pick up on it because I get a lot of requests to submit a script if you want to look at it. I've had winnings in Berlin and a couple of them in Asia, in Milan, Milano in Italy. A really good review in New York City and I think I have like midnight has about 15 winnings and honorable mention in placements different festivals throughout the world so from that it should be a treaty for a producer to take note of it, at least.


That's quite impressive. And also about your work, how did the script evolve from the first draft to the final version?


Say that again? I'm sorry.


How did the script of the film evolve from the first version to the final? Oh, the film evolve from the first version to the final?


Oh, you mean like from the TV series to the feature length? It's just a lot of going over different scenes and making improvements with any scene or different ideas or actual experiences, the script writer, you know, was back and forth with me all the time about what happened on this day, or can you give me some background on what it was like in the camp itself, you know, like the surrounding area and everything. So I just, yeah, kept evolving slowly but surely. Even now, sometimes we make little changes, depending, because some people that look at it, they're like, well, we'd like to have more episodes or other ones will say, well, we need like more action scenes. So everybody has a different perspective of what they think would sell. So we have, I have a few different versions.


Thank you for your answer. And if we're talking about challenges, what was the most challenging task for you as that you faced during making this project?


the what's the most challenging part of it? I think writing it was not easy for me, but I had kept it buried in my mind for 30 years or so because there were agreements I had made with the FBI that I couldn't reveal anything because of all the high level people that were involved. So I waited and I figured that by the time I started writing, since they were much older than I was at the time, they probably had died off. So I would have more freedom. And then to change it into a script, it was the hard part because then it's not about, like, my thoughts or what I observed, but you have to, like, show people. You can't tell them. They have to see it for themselves. So that was the difference, the challenge of, you know, turning it into a script.


Thank you. And do you remember any, like, happy accidents during the set that came as it made it into the final cut?


I don't know if a script is ever finalized. With a book, you have to reach a point and say, okay, I can't keep editing it because you get away from the original intensity of it. So you have to come to a point where you just say, that's it, you know, and if anybody wants changes, because like if a movie company gets involved or a producer, they're going to want to make changes anyway. You just have to give them 90% of what they're looking for and the rest gets tweaked and changed around.


Thank you. And what do you hope audience will take away from this film?


What I try, like when I do radio interviews, I try to emphasize not to become a victim, but to take whatever turmoil happened and you survived it, to turn it within yourself and make yourself stronger, a better person. Like after that, I learned through, I utilize horses also to help people unlock personalities with children that have cognitive behavior problems. And the way your horse reacts to them or the way they react to the horse reveals a lot about their personalities so i use that and i've helped a lot of children even like autistic children that didn't talk now are talking and doing well in school and that to me is most gratifying thing helping people and educating people to the reality of the world because so many people are so naive especially Americans know basically no history about the rest of the world except for their wars what war who they had a war with but other than they don't know about cultures they don't know about different foods so they're afraid of other other people that don't look like them or act like them or are part of their environment. They're afraid of them. That's why I think there's so much trouble in America now. Like in Ukraine, using my Ukrainian background, Ukraine, everybody I met there is like my father's Russian, my mother's Ukrainian, blah, blah, blah. And so to have a war with Russia and Ukraine makes no sense because Ukraine has half the population is Russian, at least in eastern Ukraine, you know, western Ukraine. I know they're not very fond of the Russians as much because of, you know, past history. But, you know, even people to people, some things I just don't comprehend how that happens.


Thank you for your insights and the topic of the film. And how you can describe your film in three words? It can be adjectives.


Don't be a victim.


That's really good.


Yeah.

So thank you for sharing your insight with us. We're excited to present your film at our festivaland see it on the big screen. So thank you for having this interview with us.