Jason Banker

Grand Jury Award Winner - Slamdance 2023 Jury's notes: “With idiosyncratic music choices, sibling chemistry out the wazoo, and a philosophical Brooklynite as the series lead (played by Howard Lester in his introductory role), Theodore Collatos’s Palookaville explores the surreal existence of JoJo, a man victimized by a random act of violence who now thinks he’s the famous defunct boxer/anti-fascist, Joe Louis. Will you believe that JoJo’s become the Brown Bomber? Doesn’t matter, because you will believe in Palookaville.”

Sensing evil, a haunted house tour guide seeks a medium's help only to be warned that she is facing a vengeful power beyond her control.

Stuck in a dead end town, young James kills time with his druggie friends, engaging in debauched chemical intake to the point of unconsciousness, until he meets Sara, a sweet new arrival to their group. However, Sara wants James to take her further into the world of narcotics experimentation (just as James was contemplating abandoning this lifestyle), and she also wants him to introduce her to the sinister local legend of Toad Road, a spot deep in the forest that is apparently home to the Seven Gates of Hell.

A midnight summer's dream.

Inspired by an episode of Cops, Hillbilly Wolf follows Dennis, a societal misfit / holy boy who lives in a small town in the Bible Belt region of North Louisiana. Troubled by unemployment, poverty and the death of his dog, Dennis copes with his anguish by believing in the salvation of the hereafter. His tendency toward violence, however, has made him a menace, ensuing in a meditated and desperate religious quest to escape this world.

Independent Filmmaker Caveh Zahedi is trying to make a television show. He persuades BRIC TV, a Brooklyn non-profit Arts organization, to finance a television show whose premise is that every episode will be about the making of the previous episode. In the process of creating the show, everything can-and does-go wrong. The cast, a who's who of Brooklyn's independent filmmaking community, includes Alex Karpovsky, Eleonore Hendricks, Dustin Defa, and Onur Tukel.

Lousy lover and egocentric Eric Sparrow is dumped by his girlfriend after rejecting her marital proposal. After a few failed dates his luck turns when a chance encounter with a vampire turns him into a sex god.

A has-been New York rock-star teams up with a wannabe filmmaker to destroy hipster culture in New York... if they don't destroy each other first.