"Something is chewing on the furniture in Matthew's apartment. When he confronts his new roommate, he starts to suspect that the culprit isn’t something … but someone."
Termite is a psychological horror short film about how our culture’s ideas and ideals of masculinity can eat away at us in insidious ways. It is Cronenberg adjacent, shall we say?
I am a screenwriter, fiction writer, playwright, and actor; Termite is my first project as a director.
I wrote the screenplay for Black Flies, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, starring Sean Penn and Tye Sheridan, after being selected for the Black List of Hollywood’s favorite unproduced screenplays. It was released as Asphalt City. He also wrote The Tutor, which peaked at #3 on Netflix’s Most Popular Movies list.
I was happy to get these two projects made, but both experiences were creatively unfulfilling. As I have been taking meetings about my most recent scripts, producers keep asking if I would ever want to direct. The answer is yes, and I’ve decided that the time is now.
Blossom Street Films is attached to produce. We aim to shoot in the spring of 2027.
A few creative team bios:
Ethan Dubin (Actor: Matt)
Ethan is a Brooklyn based actor and artist. Broadway: The Ferryman, Tony Award Best Play. Off-Broadway: five plays with Clubbed Thumb, most recently The Family Dog by Bailey Williams. Antigone: This Play I Read in High School (Public Theater); Bobbie Clearly (Roundabout);
Rancho Viejo (Playwrights Horizons). Some Film&TV highlights include: “Elsbeth”; “Poker Face”;
"Fallout”; the Coen Brothers’ “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs"; “Mike”; and “Inventing Anna”. He is
an affiliate artist with the theater company Clubbed Thumb.
James Arterberry (Director of Photography)
Naval navigator turned writer, producer, and cinematographer, James Arterberry is a filmmaker based in New York City. His work has earned awards and nominations from festivals all over the world to include Dances with Films, The SoHo Film Festival, The American Black Film Festival, DC Shorts Film Festival, and the Nót Film Festival. His latest short, Foxhole, has qualified for the 2027 Academy Awards by winning last year's Austin Film Festival. With a deep appreciation for short films, James salutes all those courageous enough to tackle the most challenging, yet ultimately the most honorable cinematic medium.