MASSAR STORYWORKS

In Development:

BETHLEHEM

Feature, Comedy, Drama - Screenplay by Amanda Weier

Story by Dar Williams, David Massar and Amanda Weier

It’s Christmas Eve and a Nor’easter looms over Bethlehem, the once-booming Pennsylvania steel town known as “Christmas City USA”.   As the McCabe family—Mike, Laurie and ten-year-old Tim—prepare for Santa’s arrival, they receive an unexpected phone call.  Mike’s 20-something niece Amber is visiting the area to celebrate Solstice with her friend, and needs a place to stay and wait out the incoming blizzard… But Amber’s ‘friend' Jayne is actually her Wiccan wife, and this very traditional family is about to have a Christmas they’ll never forget.

Based on Dar Williams’ acclaimed folk ballad, “The Christians and the Pagans”, Bethlehem tells the story of what might happen when fate throws an ensemble of estranged relatives with polarized ideologies into a shared holiday together.  During the course of one dramatic weekend, the McCabes and their guests must find a way to survive a power blackout, a winter storm of historic proportions, a near-catastrophic fire, and most challenging of all, a holiday celebration that breaks all the rules.  Bethlehem is a parable about tolerance, the power of facing our shadows, and the unfathomable power of unconditional love.

AMERICANS

(AKA “REFUGEES”)

Documentary Series - Created by David Massar

An 8-Part Series that profiles the extraordinary lives of a group of refugees who have made remarkable achievements in America after escaping atrocities in their native countries.

Currently Seeking Distribution

PIVOT POINT

WHEELS OF CHANGE

NINJAS OF WINCHESTER

Documentary Series - Created by David Massar

The year 2050 is a common focal point in today’s dire warnings about the climate crisis. According to renowned climate scientists the world over, it is a year wherein our success or failure at reducing carbon emissions to net zero may determine our very survival. According to the experts, we’re decades late in our response to human-caused global warming, and every year the odds of our impending extinction increase.

PIVOT POINT brings a fresh and unique perspective to this most crucial of topics, one that is rarely glimpsed from the eye of the storm where we find ourselves today. Based on hypothetical scenarios crafted by an interdisciplinary team of experts, the program imagines the near future as it might actually unfold. Rather than looking ahead to the future, it looks back from the future. Produced in 2050, it tells an imagined story of the decades yet to come.

SPOILER ALERT:  Unlike its thematic predecessors, Pivot Point ends on a note of hope. The visionaries behind the film’s narrative are optimists, and although not one of them believes that our survival is inevitable, their highly informed scenarios carve out a path forward that is in fact achievable. This inherent empowering message is what sets Pivot Point apart. And yet viewers are not spared the suspense, trials and cliffhangers that create the stakes of any good story. Like the real-life journey that may indeed lie ahead, it is a wild ride that is as suspenseful as it ultimately life-affirming.

Documentary Series - Created by David Massar & Giuseppe Terella

An eccentric Italian filmmaker travels the wilds of Costa Rica in a converted school bus in search of inspiring characters who are inventing new ways to live on Planet Earth. Armed with digital cameras and a mobile editing suite, this intrepid storyteller builds inspiring mini-documentaries before our very eyes. WHEELS OF CHANGE takes us behind the scenes as we follow one artist’s odyssey through the most bio-diverse eco system on the planet, witnessing his creative process as he profiles unsung heroes on the front lines of the climate crisis.

Feature, Comedy-Drama

Original Screenplay available in 2022