A film concept that started as a 5th grade school project is now on its way to an international film festival.
Asher Lopez was just 10 years old when he came up with the idea of a superhero called AwesomeMan. He wrote and filmed a short movie about AwesomeMan as his school passion project, using friends as actors and crew members and filming the whole things on his iPad camera at school during his lunch breaks.
“I showed it to the parents and everyone loved it,” he recalls.
Over the years, Lopez, now 20, gave the characters and the storyline more depth and added an anti-bullying message. In 2023, he teamed up with filmmaker and producer Badir Awe of Awesome Productions, who, says Lopez, loved it so much he offered to produce it for free.
The resulting two-minute film, ‘AwesomeMan: Man of Chromium’, was filmed over two days in June last year. Lopez describes it as “Cayman’s first locally-produced superhero short film made on no budget”.
The film was well received at its first public showing at Cayfest last month, and since then, Lopez has been hard at work pitching it to film festivals around the world.
His efforts soon paid off. ‘AwesomeMan: Man of Chromium’ has been nominated as a finalist at the annual International Indie Film & Screenplay festival, which will take place in Vienna, Austria, in December.
“It’s amazing, it’s exciting,” says Lopez, who says that the nomination is a significant milestone for the Cayman film community.
“It’s very validating for this vision I had when I was 10 years old, and I’m excited to potentially take something back for Cayman.”
This is just the beginning for Lopez, who is a big fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which created the Avengers franchise.
“I’m hoping to use AwesomeMan as the kick-off for a new superhero franchise, the Lopez Cinematic Universe,” he says.
“AwesomeMan has a mix of classic and unique powers that make him the ultimate force of justice — faster than lightning, stronger than titanium and virtually indestructible. He possesses super strength, super speed, flight, super senses and reflexes, near-invulnerability, instant healing, hyper metabolism and unlimited stamina.”
Cayman’s creative network
When he’s not working on building his cinematic universe, Lopez works as a freelancer, helping create music videos and cover art, and also has ambitions to become a solo recording artist.
“We have a really creative network here on Cayman and there are some really talented people here,” he says. “People here have really helped me, which I’m so grateful for.”
The cast includes Lopez as Henry Miller/AwesomeMan, Gweneth Stabler as Stacey,
George Lewis as Thug, Courtney Platt III as young Henry Miller, and Leland Scott as young
Bully.
You can watch the trailer for ‘AwesomeMan: Man of Chromium’ here.
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