Mikey Jackson fires from the hip with his first feature, Shooting Vegetarians, a highly stylized absurdist comedy that borrows equally from John Waters and Walt Disney. Guillermo Diaz (200 Cigarettes) stars as Shooting’s skateboarding hero, Neil, a vegetarian and animal rights activist given to asides addressed directly to the camera. Neil queasily succumbs to his father’s entreaty to take a trainee spot in the family butcher shop but soon flees the scene, returning later to hack up his dad in a frenzy. In a fugue state he fillets the corpse with the tools at hand and sells the results as that day’s special. Meanwhile Neil’s girlfriend Daisy (Reiko Aylesworth) and best friend Austin (Neil Driscoll, Jr.) await him at the Happy Coffee Shop, ground zero for the town’s Gen-X crowd and Austin’s trippy girlfriend (Elodie Bouchez), the Happy manager and an exotic creature in an otherwise mundane suburban world. Bouchez, who won both Cannes’ Best Actress prize and a Cesar (French Oscar) for her performance in The Dreamlife of Angels last year, literally bounces through the film with bubbles trailing in her wake thanks to offscreen trampolines and a soapsuds detail. "We took it as close to slapstick as we could without falling off the cliff into Jim Carrey territory," says Jackson.

Jackson, 23, made two prior films he describes as installments of a micro-budget experimental "Anomie Trilogy." He got the cash and crew to make a bona fide feature thanks to producer Gill Holland, who committed to the script immediately upon reading it two years ago and is responsible for Bouchez’s participation. Best known for producing Morgan J. Freeman’s 1997 Sundance winner Hurricane Streets — a debut effort for both on which Jackson was a camera p.a. — Holland has since sealed a reputation for facilitating first films from offbeat indie auteurs and most recently wrapped Tom Gilroy’s Spring Forward. Jackson estimates he’s worked more than 20 features as second a.c. or loader since his Hurricane initiation. "The plan was to stay as close to set as possible and learn from everybody else’s mistakes," he says.

Vegetarians was shot on 35mm over three weeks this spring in Rockland County’s Nanuet. Vegetarians should be done this fall; all rights are available.

Cast: Guillermo Diaz, Elodie Bouchez, Neil Driscoll, Jr., Reiko Aylesworth, Brooke Smith, Didi Conn, Bill Sage. Crew: Producer, Gill Holland, Lee Lewis, Kevin Chinoy; Line Producer, Allen Bain; Executive Producer, Michael Morley; Screenwriter/ Director, Mikey jackson; Cinematographer, Steven Lubensky; Production Design, Jon Nissenbaum; Costumes, Luca Mosca; Editor, Jonathan Mednick. Contact: Gill Holland, cinéBLAST!, 32 Thompson St., New York, NY 10013. Tel: (212) 941-0788, Fax: (212) 504-3281.

But I’m a Cheerleader - Jamie Babbit
Chuck and Buck - Miguel Arteta
The Curse - Jacqueline Garry
Happy Accidents - Brad Anderson
The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me - Tim Kirkman
Seven Girlfriends - Paul Lazarus
Shift - Kelly Anderson
Shooting Vegetarians - Mikey Jackson
Ten Hundred Kings - D.W. Maze
Who is Bernard Tapie? - Marina Zenovich