Friday, Poplarville filmmaker Frank Ladner will debut his second mockumentary, “Max Peril,” at Pearl River Community College’s Brownstone Center for the Performing Arts.
A mockumentary is a documentary about a fake subject, Ladner said.
Since the age of 12, Ladner has experimented with filmmaking.
The Poplarville High School and PRCC graduate owns and operates a woodworking business, where he creates wooden wedding rings.
“I feel blessed,” Ladner said. “I work in my wood shop most of the day and that affords me time to film.”
Three-years-ago, his first film, “Hickory Never Bleeds,” premiered at PRCC.
It’s a southern comedy about a group of people in a small town who form the monster defense team in order to discover what’s lurking in the woods, Ladner said.
The film featured actors from the community and about 200 people attended the screening.
“It was a great experience for me,” Ladner said. “It was a cool experience for people to watch a movie that featured someone they knew in it.”
Ladner doesn’t utilize a script because he feels that a script stifles the dialogue for people who are not versed in acting.
“One of the actors really lost five dogs in the woods and he used that to play into the film,” Ladner said. “Hickory Never Bleeds” is slow paced, but it’s really an excuse to showcase the southern personalities I grew up with. The story takes a backseat in this case.”
Ladner began shooting his new film, “Max Peril” in November 2014 and wrapped up filming in April.
The new film is about a filmmaker named Riley, played by Ladner, who, as he nears his 30th birthday, realizes the films he’s made thus far are half completed.
As he struggles to come up with an idea, Riley meets veteran and retired secret service agent Max Peril, who is played by Poplarville’s own Buddy Moody.
The movie was shot entirely in Poplarville and Ladner used local people as to portray the film’s characters.
Ladner said he is a self-taught filmmaker. He studies books on filmmaking and two of his favorite directors are Jared Heff, who directed “Napoleon Dynamite” and “Nacho Libre,” and Errol Morris, who directed “Vernon, Florida.”
The film is about 96 minutes long and will be screened on Friday, May 15 at 7:30 p.m. Admission is $5.
“Max Peril” has been accepted into Hattiesburg’s first film exposition at Festival South and will be shown at the Grand Theater on June 2 at 7 p.m.
Learn more about the film through Facebook at Max Peril.