Veterans Movie ‘My Dead Friend Zoe’ Trailer Featuring Natalie Morales
by Alex Billington
November 13, 2024
Source: YouTube
“When a soldier dies, you suck it up.” Briarcliff Ent. has unveiled an official trailer for a movie called My Dead Friend Zoe, marking the feature directorial debut of filmmaker Kyle Hausmann-Stokes (who was in the US Army). A fresh new take on veterans. This initially premiered at the 2024 SXSW Film Festival earlier this year, where it won the Audience Award in the Narrative Spotlight section. You can tell why from this trailer! Engaged in a mysterious relationship with her dead best friend from the Army, a female Afghanistan veteran comes head to head with her Vietnam vet grandfather while at the family’s ancestral lake house. At its core, this is about a complicated friendship, a divided family and the complex ways in which we process grief. This unique indie film stars Sonequa Martin-Green as Merit, Natalie Morales as Zoe, along with Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman, Utkarsh Ambudkar, and Gloria Reuben. This is an impressively dark comedy about grief and veterans, following her around as she deals with a lingering ghost of her best friend. This looks VERY smart and clever, which is what cinema really should be all about these days. Take a look.
Here’s the official trailer for Kyle Hausmann-Stokes’ film My Dead Friend Zoe, from YouTube:
My Dead Friend Zoe is a dark comedy drama that follows the journey of Merit, a U.S. Army Afghanistan veteran who is at odds with her family thanks to the presence of Zoe, her dead best friend from the Army. Despite the persistence of her VA group counselor, the tough love of her mother and the levity of an unexpected love interest, Merit’s cozy-dysfunctional friendship with Zoe keeps the duo insulated from the world. That is until Merit’s estranged grandfather—holed up at the family’s ancestral lake house—begins to lose his way and is need of the one thing he refuses… help. My Dead Friend Zoe is directed by American filmmaker Kyle Hausmann-Stokes, who was a paratrooper in the US army before filmmaking, and is now making his feature directorial debut after many other short films previously. The screenplay is written by Kyle Hausmann-Stokes & A.J. Bermudez, from a story by Cherish Chen & Kyle Hausmann-Stokes. Produced by Paul Scanlan, Terri Lubaroff, Ray Maiello, Mike Field, Richard Silverman, Robert Paschall Jr, & Kyle Hausmann-Stokes. This initially premiered at the 2024 SXSW Film Festival earlier this year. Briarcliff Ent. will debut My Dead Friend Zoe in US theaters starting February 28th, 2025 early next year. Look good?
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