Dramedy 'Don't Tell Larry' screens at the Big Apple Film Festival

When Greg Porper worked at a reality television production company from 2012 to 2015, neither he nor his co-workers Kiel Kennedy and John Schimke wanted to be there.

“We bonded over the fact that we actually really liked comedy,” he said. “Kiel Kennedy was a member of the Groundlings. After we saw how funny he was, John and I wrote this series of sketches about a misunderstood co-worker.”

The sketches became a web series that premiered at the New York Television Festival and at film festivals across the country. But, Porper found the web series format was limited.

“The feedback we got from people is that it was a good idea but no one does anything with a web series,” he said. “The idea was constantly escalating.”

Eventually, the project morphed into a 90-minute feature called Don’t Tell Larry, which screened on Nov. 5 at the 20th Annual Big Apple Film Festival (BAFF) Fall Edition at the Cinema Village movie theatre on East 12 Street.

In the feature, a disassociated new employee named Larry (Kennedy) becomes the target of two misfit co-workers (Patty Guggenheim, Kenneth Mosely) because he's creepy.

But Larry has an Ace in his pocket. The co-workers learn that he is the long lost illegitimate son of the CEO portrayed by Ed Begley Jr, which sets in motion a sequence of hilarious events that border on horror.

“This is a bit of a farce," Porper told Patch. "So, there’s a little suspension of belief required.”

The employment of the CEO’s awkward son leads to three deaths involving urine, a set of stairs, Cannabis-infused gummy bears, a hard drive, a detective, a gavel, a sword, a gun and a retirement party.

"Everything is a puzzle piece," Porper said. "Every time there's a line, it's usually not a throw away line. It's going to come back in some way."

Although Porper wanted to film in Los Angeles where he currently resides, it was cheaper to relocate the production to Texas for six months in 2022.

“We pretty much took over an office building in Dallas-Fort Worth, which in Los Angeles, unfortunately, is not filmmaker friendly,” he said. "Financially, it's much more difficult to film in Los Angeles."

Prior to arriving at the Big Apple Film Festival, Don't Tell Larry screened at the Austin Film Festival last week.

"Some distributors have started to reach out from that in the past few days," Porper added. "We want to be particular about who we team up with so we can give this film the marketing plan it deserves."

BAFF independent film selections continue through Nov. 9. Tickets can be purchased on the BAFF website.