Attend Film Prize in-person October 16-17th or watch online starting October 15th, watch all 20 short films, and then you can vote for the grand prize winner of $50,000 cash. Plus you can vote for the best acting performance category!
An overworked man goes to cabin in the woods hoping to fall into a time loop.
Produced by Erinn Hayes, Brian Dietzen, Alexander Jeffery, Brittany Fallow
Starring Brian Dietzen, Erinn Hayes, Charleszette Tyson Roe
Cinematography by Alexander Jeffery
Edited by Alexander Jeffery
Music by Bence Farkas
Erinn Hayes is an actor, writer and director who has worked professionally in television and movies for over 25 years. She earned an Emmy nomination for her role as Dr. Lola Spratt in the long running cult comedy Childrens Hospital and starred in the subsequent spin off Medical Police on Netflix. She has appeared alongside Keanu Reeves in Bill & Ted Face the Music, Kevin James in the sitcom Kevin Can Wait, and appeared in The Goldbergs, Parks and Rec, A Christmas Story Christmas and many more. She currently stars with Scott Foley in It’s Not Like That on Amazon Prime and can be heard as the voice of Harmony on the Fox animated show Grimsburg. The King of Time is her directing debut.
Coming Soon
I wrote The King of Time at a moment when I was feeling overworked, over connected, and just over the day to day of to-do lists, zoom meetings and laundry that never ends. The idea that you could willingly enter a time loop if you knew how was what initially popped into my head and refused to leave. We’ve spent our lives watching time loop movies and imagining what we would do should we wake up and it’s yesterday, again. I was a child of the 80’s and the sitcom Out of This World where the girl could stop time and do whatever she wanted has taken up way more of my brain than I’d care to admit. To put a pause on life and come back when you’re ready, how divine.
The other idea I wanted to explore is that we all think we know the rules of time loops. We’ve watched so many fictional people in so many shows and movies and it made me laugh to think of someone not interested in the early days and who just jumps to the good stuff, to the chaos and freedom of a day with no consequences. He has the chance to experience the one event from which people don’t come back, of course he’s going to try that. I was very interested in the idea that instead of just waking up in a time loop, he’s actively choosing a time loop. And if we could give that magic to someone we love, would we?
I’ve been working professionally on sets for 26 years in front of the camera, but knowing I wanted to step behind and direct for a long time. Once this idea came to me it felt like I finally had the story I wanted to tell for my first directing experience.
My hope with this film is that you might identify with the protagonists’ deep need to disconnect from his responsibilities, to the desire to feel free and untethered for a moment, as well as the temptation to dip a toe into the universe- the know the unknowable. It’s ultimately a comedy, albeit a dark one, so hopefully there are a few laughs along the way.
— Erinn Hayes
