MOON GARDEN – Synopsis & Commentary by Chris Hallock
While fleeing from her arguing parents late one night, five-year-old Emma slips into a coma after tumbling down a flight of stairs. She awakens in a strange new world, a twisted industrial wasteland rooted deep in her subconscious. There she confronts strange and wondrous creatures, pursued by a malevolent being hungry for her tears. Throughout her ordeal, Emma is guided by the voices of her parents (and the haunting melody of Harry Nilsson’s “Without You”), broadcasting through a transistor radio, guiding her back from the fantasy world in which she’s imprisoned.

Ryan Stevens Harris’s extraordinary Moon Garden takes us on a phantasmagoric odyssey through the psyche of a comatose child. His ambitious work uses a child’s trauma to launch a spellbinding cinematic journey, leading us down treacherous paths, while channeling youthful exuberance in fleeting moments of gentle whimsy.

Those carrying childhood scars (i.e.: everyone) will easily connect with this bold and visionary tale, a surreal expedition where a gargantuan rhino can serve as convenient transportation. The stunning presentation, captured on 35mm film by Wolfgang Meyer, uses vivid color, and spectacular special effects, to deliver an emotionally-resonant and visceral story.

Moon Garden is a lyrical fantasy that evokes the imaginative realms found in challenging, child-centric works like Paperhouse, Pan’s Labyrinth, Mirrormask, and City of Lost Children, a tableau with danger lurking around every corner, within a framework designed to subvert the romanticized notion of childhood.

Chris Hallock is a writer and film programmer in Seattle. He has contributed to VideoScope Magazine, Cemetery Dance, Diabolique, Boston Globe, Yuletide Terror: Christmas Horror on Film & Television; Scared Sacred: Idolatry, Religion and Worship in the Horror Film, and If I Only Had a Brain: Scarecrows in Film & Television. He also serves on the programming team for the Boston Underground Film Festival.

Ryan Stevens Harris —
Writer-Director-Editor-Animator-Sound Designer
An award-winning filmmaker, editor, and exhibited artist. Studied filmmaking in London and at the USC School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles, where, with John Elfers, he co-founded Fire Trial Films, a boutique production company focused on 35mm production.

Ryan was DP on FINALE (2009) and had his directorial debut with VIRUS X (2010) a tech-noir released by Lionsgate In 2016, Harris directed “Whisper,” an animated music video for the indie band Playing to Vapors featured at the SXSW Film Festival. Multi-talented, Harris edited and sound-designed the Lionsgate sci fi blockbuster, MOONFALL (2022), as well as edited a host of Netflix releases including WINTER’S DREAM (2016), DARC (2018), and THE HARD WAY (2019).

He also edited WATCHTOWER (2019), which was nominated for two Emmys and premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, and was an additional editor and sound designer on the war-epic MIDWAY (2019), which was #1 at the box office upon its release.

Although it is his second feature film, he considers MOON GARDEN as his first true directorial debut—a lush dark fantasy odyssey with highly stylized art design, shot on expired 35mm film with vintage lenses and featuring his own real-life daughter. Ryan, wife Colleen and daughter Haven currently reside in Los Angeles.

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John Michael Elfers —
Producer, Stop-Motion Puppeteer
A native of Cincinnati and graduate of St. Xavier High School, by age 18 he shot a no-budget digital movie and moved to Los Angeles. John graduated magna cum laude from USC, founded Fire Trial Films with Ryan Stevens Harris, and immediately secured grants from Panavision and Kodak to write and direct his first feature, FINALE (2009). His award-winning screenwriting landed him on the Blood List in 2011.

Elfers has since made a reputation as a “fixer” who gets hired to take over troubled films; writing and directing additional scenes to address story issues, increase production value, and ultimately secure distribution. This path led him to co-produce the features BEYOND WHITE SPACE (2018) and DISCARNATE (2019) with A-List producer Harald Kloser.

Elfers worked directly with Kloser and Roland Emmerich to cut the International Press tour for INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE (2016), a $10M crossover recruiting campaign for the U.S. Army, and a promo to sell MIDWAY (2019) to Japan.

The high-profile studio work allowed Elfers to invest in a full-scale 35mm independent production rig, with Arriflex film cameras, vintage Zeiss lenses, lights, G&E, jibs, film stock and more, which he utilized to produce Harris’ ambitious, highly-stylized feature MOON GARDEN.

Elfers resides in Hollywood above the studio where Fire Trial Films is building the sets for his next feature as writer-director, the hyper-stylized art-house meets grind-house vampire film, VORACIOUS.

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Bretton Miller

Bretton Miller has been involved in filmmaking since his early teens, exploring live-action shorts, documentaries, and animation. He graduated from Florida State University’s College of Motion Picture Arts, with a BFA in Film Production specializing in directing.

He has had various roles in the production of forty short feature-length films, in front and behind the camera.  In addition Bretton served as a screenings coordinator and film programmer while at Florida State. Currently, he is the co-founder of Devra Labs in Cincinnati which creates short films, commercials, music videos and feature films. His activities include directing, writing, editing, shooting and acting in Devra’s short films.

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Tim Swallow

Tim operates The Garfield Theatre and is a founder and president of Cincinnati World Cinema, with a 22-year history of film programming and presentation, including world premieres, festivals and retrospectives.

Specializing in short film and documentaries, Tim’s passion, and CWC’s mission, is building a film community to experience high-quality international, independent and short-form cinema not normally available in this market.