BALTIMORE — Emerging film director/actor, Michael Anthony Hobbs is on the rise in Baltimore. The 12-year-old debuted his second short feature film, “Naga Pixie,” to rave reviews this past week at the Arbutus Community Center in Baltimore County.
Hobbs, a student at Our Lady of Victory in Baltimore, originally created the drama as a classroom assignment but quickly decided to transform the project into a film.
“It started out as a project for school but after reviewing it, I thought it would make a good movie,” the young director Hobbs said during an exclusive interview with the Baltimore Times Newspaper.
“Naga Pixie” is the story of a fairy (Trinity Breane Perio) that persistently reminds Jason (Hobbs) and his friends to respect nature, animals and the environment. The film, which is set in Baltimore, reminds audiences that there is beauty in every natural environment, even in the heart of the city’s urban core.
The 13-minute film took Hobbs and his assistant producer Zachary Hammonds, age 11, one week to produce and edit. Hobbs will submit the film to several national film competitions and hopes to experience success similar to the acclaim garnered by his first release, “One Nation,” completed in 2014.
“One Nation” told the story of a group of multi-racial youth who organized a special recognition for veterans from the war in Iraq, as they returned to their neighborhood after the war.
The film was screened at 10 national film festivals and won four national awards, including the Montclair Film Festival’s Grand Prize for Kids Short Film; and the Gary, Indiana International Black Film Festival’s Best Youth Short.
During the Naga Pixie screening event, guests had the opportunity to appear in an initial shoot of a scene that will appear in Hobbs’ third release.
“There is a lot he wants to do,” said
Eunice Moseley, his PR director and grandmother. “He has been reading scripts since he was five years old, he has his own agency and he’s starting on his third film.”
I guess that means it’s time for Baltimore’s acclaimed director and screenwriter of the film “Hairspray” to move over— there is a new talent in town!