Every spring semester, I spend roughly a month, typically in February, pulling my hair out over the internship search and grant application process. This month wouldn’t be so bad…

“It includes pin-up models, burlesque models, hot rods, custom cars…..A lot of rockabilly, pyschobilly music, but also some blues stuff. A lot of pin strip artist are involved, and a lot of older style art like, Rat Fink kind of art styles, and kind of late 50s, early 60s art style. It’s kind of all put together loosely by the term ‘Kustom Kulture’.”

Heavily overcast skies filled with acid rain that corrodes metal. Women and children paddling in boats across gray-brown water in which once abundant fish are mostly gone and those left are poisoned. In the brown murk, where sky blends with horizon, gas flares burn atop oil-well vent pipes. Welcome to Africa’s Niger Delta.

Director Kevin Hamedani’s debut narrative feature, ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction, screened to sold-out audiences at the 2009 Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) and tied as third place runner-up for SIFF’s Best Film Golden Space Needle Audience award.

He might not know what lies in the depths of the human heart, but Kevin Hamedani has an inkling that something alien to human generosity lurks in small towns.