MORE SHADES OF GRAY: An Evening of 5 Short Films by John Gray

Online ticket sales end at 5:00pm today. Additional tickets will be sold at the door at 7:30. A seventy-minute compilation of short films by Rockland County’s master of menace, twisted plots, mysteries, puzzles… and romance. Few filmmakers have much more experience writing and directing narrative film and television than John Gray, the creator of the long running series Ghost Whisperer starring Jennifer Love Hewitt. In recent years he’s been making short films that have been playing in film festivals all over the world. This is the second Shades of Gray collection of short films presented at Rivertown Film.

Following the films, John Gray will discuss his work with J.D. Zeik, screenwriter (Ronin, Witchblade) and professor at the SUNY Purchase School of Film and Media Studies.

More Shades of Gray will include the following films.

A GUEST IN MY COUNTRY
2024, 15 minutes
An immigrant Uber driver takes an upscale couple across town, and the drama that unfolds reveals truths they all would have preferred to stay hidden.

THE OVERLOOK
2023, 18 minutes
An estranged couple reunite for a mysterious errand in the woods.

UNQUIET DEAD
2022 13 minutes
A therapist treats an unstable young woman who claims to be harassed by an assortment of malevolent spirits – who are demanding she engage with them.

THE DESECRATED
2018, 7 minutes
A young morgue attendant working the night shift encounters an unwelcome visitor.

FRENCH KISS
2015, 23 minutes
Travel should inspire and delight. It should remind you that anything is possible. But for Ethan, an international business traveler, his trip to Paris has been all work, no inspiration.

Brooklyn born John Gray is an award-winning writer-director-producer of films and television, and the creator of the long running TV series, Ghost Whisperer. He has written and directed many feature films and movies for television, including White Irish Drinkers, starring Stephen Lang and Karen Allen; Martin And Lewis, starring Sean Hayes and Jeremy Northam; the Emmy® nominated A Place For Annie, with Sissy Spacek; the Emmy® nominated mini-series Haven with Natasha Richardson and Anne Bancroft; Helter Skelter, and many others.

Gray has directed numerous episodes of broadcast and cable series, including multiple episodes of the NBC series Grimm and was also the producing director of the CBS series Reckless. Gray’s acclaimed short films play in film festivals all over the world, and French Kiss has notched over 6.3 million views to date on YouTube. He is married to writer-filmmaker Melissa Jo Peltier, and they make their home in New York and Cape Cod, MA. In 2022 he published his first novel, The Desecrated, which was a Finalist in the Horror: Paranormal/Supernatural category of the American Fiction Awards

Follow him on Twitter @JThomasGray, or Instagram @bayrdge.

“A film that could have settled for being a masterclass in technique, but instead goes deeper, exploring questions of artistry, authorship, legacy.” NPR

“Had The Christophers just been a cross-generational punch-up, the sort of flinty showdown designed to throw off pleasurable sparks, you’d still walk away content. It remains a conduit for two of the best performances you’ll see all year.” – David Fear, Rolling Stone

“The Christophers is largely a comedy, but it’s also about all that we gain and lose with age, and about how we sometimes need young people to bring us back to ourselves.” – Stephanie Zacharek, TIME

“Having lost the inspiration that guided him to greatness, Julian is an artist who can no longer paint, and Lori is an artist who has lost all confidence in there being a place for her work in the larger world. For all the undercurrents about fame, commodification, and reputation that flow through The Christophers, at its core is a more plaintive lament about what it feels like to love something that doesn’t love you back.” – Alison Willmore, Vulture

“Go see The Christophers. Show up, and support a tiny, talky experiment that has no relationship to IP or sequels or box-office projection. It’s not a perfect movie, but it’s also never, as Lori grudgingly notes about Julian’s work, uninteresting. And in this cultural moment, that’s an authentic win.” – Elizabeth Weitzman, Time Out

“The Christophers is a work of criticism that deftly distinguishes different approaches to criticism.” ­– Justin Chang, The New Yorker 

“Brims with hilarious dialogue, lightly satirical observations of a culture that treats art as a commodity, and satisfying payoffs to a number of story elements planted early on.” – Seth Katz, Slant Magazine

“In the end, this film about artists becomes a work of art in its own right. The more you look at it, the more its many components reveal themselves to you.” – Chase Hutchinson, The Wrap

“Ian McKellen plays Julian Sklar, a sardonic art legend who meets his intellectual match in frank preservationist Lori Butler (Michaela Coel). In a test of wits and wills held mostly in a single-setting, Soderbergh pushes both characters to return to their former passions through philosophical conversations that reflect his own career.” – Robert Daniels, Screen International

“It bats about ideas pertaining to art, commerce, ownership and legacy with dexterous aplomb and boasts two equally superb leads who make the material crackle.” – David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

“The Christophers is a talky, at times incredibly funny, comedy drama with plot reversals that make it feel like it’s on the verge of a thriller. It doesn’t end up there, at least not strictly, but it’s unpredictable enough to never make us entirely sure just where it’s heading.” – Benjamin Lee, Guardian

“There’s no room for anything shy of genius in The Christophers, a crackling original drama about artistic legacy in all its facets, directed by Steven Soderbergh , from a script by Ed Solomon (No Sudden Move) and starring two top-notch English actors of wildly different backgrounds and styles, Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel, at the top of their respective games.” – Peter Debruge, Variety

“With Ian McKellen in superbly crotchety form and Michaela Coel exuding chilly cunning, it’s further proof that Soderbergh remains one of American Cinema’s most inimitable, and adventurous, auteurs. – Nick Schager, The Daily Beast