Prince George filmmakers get Stephen King's endorsement for festival of films based on his work

A pair of Prince George, B.C., filmmakersare still reeling from the excitement of having their projectendorsed by the king of horror.

Stephen King posted a tweet showinghis support for a virtual film festivalin the central B.C. city that will pay homage to the author's work.

The festival, called Stephen King Rules,features 25 films based on King's unpublished stories and will be hosted on YouTube.

When the author heard about the film festival, he tweeted out, simply: "This is a cool thing."

"We were losing our minds. It's like you're being touched by the master,"said Norm Coyne, one of the two people behind Barker Street Cinema, the Prince George film company organizing the festival.

"I've been a King fan for a long long time," he toldCBC'sDaybreak North."[And] this film festival was a passionproject between my partner ... and I."

Coyne said whileproducing The Doctor's Case,their ownadaptation of King's work,three years ago, heand his partner James Douglasdiscovered the Dollar Baby Deal, a program run by King in which filmmakers are granted non-commercial rightsto turn one of his unpublished short stories into a film for $1.

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Normally, these films would be presented atfilm festivals but, because of the pandemic, Coyne said he and Douglaswanted to find another way to still showcase their work.

"Our ideawas to do something during the pandemic that would allow these filmmakers, who can't show their films at festivals, to show them to the massive audience of the world but also provide people in isolation ...25 Stephen King films,"Coyne said.

He said they contacted King's team for permission to show theadapted films online, and were thrilledto get King's personal support on Twitter.

"As storytellers ... we want to share what we created with as many people as possible," he said.

Stephen King Rules runs April 23-25 from 1 to 6 p.m. onBarker Street Cinema's YouTube channel.

LISTEN | Norm Coyne talks about Stephen King Rules and the author's endorsement on Daybreak North:

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