Ningen Manga Unveils Cast, Website for Upcoming Horror Film, Women’s Studies

Ningen Manga Productions

Ningen Manga Unveils Cast, Website for Upcoming Horror Film, Women’s Studies

10/1/06 — Ningen Manga Productions unveiled a new website, http://www.womenstudiesmovie.com , for their upcoming feature length horror film, Women's Studies, on Sunday, October 1st. The website publicly announced six of the nine main cast members appearing in the film.

Women's Studies tells the story of Mary, a pregnant grad student, and her friends who are held captive at a women's academy that's actually a cult of feminists bent on the enslavement of men. Rather than a typical "hack & slash" horror movie, writer/director, Lonnie Martin, describes it as “an intelligent look at groupthink, women's issues, and how blind belief in any one-sided dogma can create a terrorist.” Principal photography is slated to begin in 2007.

Instead of a horror movie website, the Women's Studies site is designed to look like a promotional site for the “Ross-Prentiss Women's Academy,” the fictional college where much of the film will take place. The site features links to cast and crew, a weekly updated production blog, and a ten minute promotional video with cast and crew interviews.

“We're very excited about the site,” said Cindy Marie Martin, co-producer and marketing director for Ningen Manga Productions. “The design idea is that it's a haunted website with hidden links and easter eggs galore that lead to juicy little details about this women's academy and the people associated with it.”
The main cast of Women's Studies is made up of six talented actors from in and around the Washington, DC area.

Ningen Manga Co-Producer Cindy Marie Martin, best known for the short films Ten Minutes and Under the Bed, will be playing the lead role of Mary. While Tara Garwood, soon to be seen in the upcoming Nicole Kidman Body Snatcher remake, The Visiting, will play Judith, the mysterious leader of the women's academy girls. Also featured are DC independent actors Kelley Slagle (FELT, Noir) as Judith's lieutenant, Diane, and Melisa Breiner-Sanders (Holler Creek Canyon) as Mary's cautious best friend, Beth. Rounding out the cast are Laura Bloechl as Mary's insecure friend Iris, and Tiffany James as the “new-age” academy girl, Melissa.

Earlier this year, Women's Studies sparked controversy between two feminist blogs simply over its casting announcement. The Independent Women's Forum, a group of conservative feminists, interpreted the film's concept as support against radical women's studies programs, which prompted a response from the liberal blog, Amanda Marcotte's Pandagon, which blasted the Women's Studies concept as anti-feminist.

Though Writer/Director Lonnie Martin thought both the responses were overreactions, he wasn't too worried about them. “The movie has no political agenda except to show how scary cults can be. It's all done in the spirit of horror movie fun. Feminists, misogynists, pagans, abortionists; we skewer everybody, both figuratively and literally.”

Martin thinks horror and non-horror fans alike will be attracted to Women's Stuides.

“It's very topical,” he says, “and yet it also deals with universal ideas and emotions that are timeless. It's also scary as hell.”

For additional information, go to http://www.womensstudiesmovie.com

In 2005, Ningen Manga Productions completed the short film, First Session, which went on to garner positive reviews and was accepted as an Official Entry to both the Temecula Valley International Film Festival and the West Chester Film Festival. Earlier this year they won a “Best Sound Design” award during the 2006 Washington, DC 48 Hour Film Project.

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