Splinter Sweeps the Awards Ceremony at ScreamFestLA
In Theaters Halloween 2008
(Los Angeles, CA) Composer Elia Cmiral creates a haunting score for \"Splinter,\" the first full-length film by award-winning director Toby Wilkins. Splinter premiered at ScreamFestLA and swept the awards ceremony, including Cmiral taking home the award for \"Best Musical Score.\" The movie also won \"Best Editing,\" \"Best Makeup,\" \"Best Direction\" and \"Best Picture.\" In the film, a convict and his girlfriend carjack a couple on a weekend retreat in the woods. The couples soon find themselves trapped together in an isolated gas station, on the run from a deadly parasite that occupies the woods outside. \"Splinter\" opens in theaters on October 31, 2008.
ScreamFestLA, a film festival devoted entirely to the horror genre, showcases some of the best independent short and full-length horror films each year. \"Splinter\" director Toby Wilkins won Best Horror Short for his film \"Staring at the Sun\" in 2005, garnering the attention of producer Sam Raimi, who then chose Wilkins to produce, direct, and write a number of short films for his production company, Ghost House Pictures. This year, the festival was held at Grauman\'s Mann Chinese 6 Theatres in Hollywood, Calif.
No stranger to the world of thrillers, Cmiral scored \"Tooth & Nail\" and \"The Deaths of Ian Stone,\" both featured at last year\'s After Dark Horrorfest. Most recently, he finished scoring \"Pulse 2: Afterlife,\" the sequel to last year\'s Wes Craven film, \"Pulse,\" for which he also wrote the score. This was Cmiral\'s second collaboration with Craven, having scored \"Wes Craven Presents: They\" in 2002. In addition, he scored John Frankenheimer\'s suspense thriller \"Ronin,\" starring Robert DeNiro. Cmiral continues to provide highly original and evocative scores for major Hollywood studios as well as independent filmmakers, including \"Journey to the End of the Night,\" \"Stigmata,\" \"Bones\" and \"Species 3.\"
Born in Czechoslovakia, Elia Cmiral quickly established himself as one of Europe\'s leading young composers after graduating from the prestigious Prague Music Conservatory. He wrote scores for several European films and three ballets before coming to the United States to attend USC\'s famous Film Scoring Program, after which he was hired to produce tango-based music for \"Apartment Zero,\" composing a now-classic full length score in a scant ten days. By the mid-1990s, Cmiral had garnered a reputation with Hollywood executives, leading to his scoring the successful \"Nash Bridges\" television series.