Emerging Filmmakers Showcase: ‘Dark Noon’
November 19 @ 7:00 pm
The Lindsay’s second November Emerging Filmmakers Showcase is a locally filmed crime drama that may be one of only a handful of features ever to shoot during a total solar eclipse.
Dark Noon was directed, written and produced by Sewickley-based filmmaker John “J.R.” Jaquish. It follows a man who was recently released from prison and sees an impending solar eclipse as a way to break his cycle of crime and incarceration. Jaquish filmed Dark Noon largely throughout the Pittsburgh area—including scenes shot during a total solar eclipse in 2024.
His ambitious, 84-minute project will play at The Lindsay on Thursday, Nov. 19, at 7 p.m. Jaquish will be at his hometown theater for a Q&A following the screening. Tickets are free, and we recommend RSVPing via the sign-up form below due to space limitations.
“Dark Noon explores the nature of crime as an existential act,” says Jaquish. “In the film, the astronomical cycles of the sun and moon mirror the protagonist’s seemingly perpetual cycle of petty crime, imprisonment and release, culminating in the life-defining event of the solar eclipse.”
In Dark Noon, Cid (Michael Steger) is released from prison after a failed bank robbery attempt. Forced back into his old menial job and turned out by his former girlfriend, he struggles to maintain a dull but law-abiding existence. As a fight with his boss sends him spiraling back towards crime, an upcoming total solar eclipse presents a unique opportunity for a final, self-defining act.
The seeds of Dark Noon were planted in Jaquish’s mind during “The Great American Eclipse” on Aug. 21, 2017. Though Jaquish came up with this story on his own, it turned out that a bank in Oregon was actually robbed during that eclipse.
For the film’s eclipse sequences, the Dark Noon team worked meticulously to find a location in the 2024 eclipse’s path that matched Pittsburgh’s general look. They settled on Colebrook, N.H., where they used two Super 16mm cameras and one 35mm camera to capture incredible footage.
Fun fact: One of the only other films to ever shoot during a total solar eclipse is 1961’s Barabbas—a biblical figure who Steger coincidentally played in the television series The Chosen.
Jaquish is a University of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Filmmakers alumnus. His first feature was 2017’s The Mutineer, which follows a group of criminals as they take over a farm in rural Appalachia and try to secede from the United States. That film helped get Jaquish accepted to attend legendary director Werner Herzog’s final Rogue Film School session.
The Dark Noon cast and crew are full of familiar faces in the Pittsburgh filmmaking community. Matt Meehan, the film’s director of photography, is known for serving as the cinematographer on music videos such as Mac Miller’s Brand Name and Bake Sale, a Wiz Khalifa track featuring Travis Scott.
