After a ten-year journey of trying to get his story shown on the silver screen, Vasilios Bouzas’ novella series “The Deathkeeper” has finally gained its cinematic adaptation in the form of Tristan Barr’s film “Dusk” with the hopes of releasing later this year.
The fantasy horror picture, directed by Tristan Barr, is the end product of a massive effort by Bouzas to see his story that he initially wrote in 2007 brought to the big screen.
“It was virtually impossible to get someone in the film industry to read them. Many times I felt like giving up, but with my wife’s support, we all kept believing,” the Athens-born author told Neos Kosmos.
Bouzas’ series covers the story of Luke Whelan, a near-immortal angel with a curse that means he can only age when saving the lives of others by touching them and can only reverse his aging process by killing others.
The series follows his journey to find the demon who cursed him and his bloodline, Malagor, so he can break the curse all the while encountering numerous other characters (good and bad) that all want to use him for his gift.
Bouzas explained that he wrote this series as part of a coping strategy following the death of his mother Xanthi on November 12, 2005.
“That day I rushed her to the emergency department. A nurse came out and asked me to quickly come inside and hold my mother’s hand. I got on my knees, held her hand and whispered a silent prayer,” the medical scientist by profession said.
“The next voice I heard was ‘time of death’. I felt helpless, holding her hand, not being able to do anything to save her. I started crying. It was a son crying for his dead mother.”
He revealed that the pain of that memory only subsided when one night, in his dreams, he saw his mother who asked him to move on.
“The very next day I started writing. I have never written anything in my life before but I started writing….the words just came out like a waterfall,” the author with roots from Nafpaktos and Lefkada said.
Bouzas, who migrated to Australia as a three-year-old, said the whole process of making the film, of which he and his wife serve as executive producers, has been thoroughly enjoyable.
“I have had a wonderful experience in working with producer Sandra Sciberras, director Tristan Barr and writer Caleb Scott in making the film,” the author said.
“We all sat together numerous times and planned which way the film should go, and they have kept the film quite close to my novellas.”
He admitted that during the making of the picture, which was shot between November and December of last year in the town of Marburg, just outside of Ipswich, Queensland, he has felt a buzz in seeing his writing visualised.
“It has been fantastic having my book series translated into a film. It was great being on set, seeing my characters come to life and people shouting their names out, like Malagor, Luke, Father Muldoon etc,” he said.
“All in all, it has been a very surreal experience.”
The film gained a massive supporter in Simon Crowe and his company SC Films International, who acquired the worldwide rights to sell and distribute the film which also led to the movie getting a spot at the European Film Market in Berlin earlier this month.
Along with this, “Dusk” will also be sold and distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Monster Pictures and Bouzas said the aim is for the film to release sometime between the end of 2024 and early 2025.