April 18, 2011 – Philadelphia, PA — Breaking Glass Pictures will release director Gregg Holtgrewe’s “Dawning” on DVD June 28 under the Vicious Circle Films label. The award-winning psychological thriller has played more than a dozen film festivals and has received acclaim from horror critics across the country.

When siblings Chris and Aurora go to visit their father and stepmother at their northern Minnesota cabin, their first night turns tragic after the family dog disappears into the woods and ends up mortally wounded. As the family reels from the sudden loss of their beloved pet, underlying feelings of resentment begin boiling to the surface. Then, a crazed, blood-soaked stranger barges into the cabin and tells the family that he has come to save them…but from what? Though their unwanted guest may just be a lone maniac, menacing noises outside suggest the presence of something far more frightening. It’s not long before the family realizes a dark force is at play – one that wants them all dead by the dawning of the day.

Director Gregg Holtgrewe’s “Dawning” is a psychological thriller that ratchets up the tension as it uncovers the hidden demons that can tear a family apart. With its mysterious and unpredictable plotline, it rivets viewers till its shocking and disturbing end.

“Dawning” received excellent praise from horror critics — making its way onto five annual top ten lists — and took home awards including the Silver Ace Award at the Las Vegas Film Festival, Best Picture at the Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival, and both Best Screenplay and Audience Award at the Solstice Film Festival.

Bonus features will include: Writer/director commentary, cast commentary, behind-the-scenes featurette with exclusive interviews, and deleted footage.

TJ was a mule, digging in his heels and pushing forth with fierce determination. By the end of the 2007 shoot, when we were going to shoot the car upside down in the rain, we had lost all of our lighting crew except for TJ. He and I decided it would be best for me to be in the car running camera and he’d be outside the car working the lights…mind you, it was raining hard and TJ is out in standing pools of water plugging and un-plugging lights, it was both scary and breathtaking to watch him move about with confidence and passion in the face of extreme weather, no help and seriously dangerous conditions. But like usual, TJ did his job and did it without being angry or frustrated, he just took it in stride, whether it was the fact we couldn’t use lensing or he didn’t have any crew left. TJ was able to take these limitations and still make the film look professional. We took chances, we used solid blacks, only source light, we didn’t use lenses, we didn’t use any toys (just hand-held and tri-pod), we found a way to shoot a film in one location without repeating shots and in 2008 we went back and added new footage which needed to match the old footage. In fact, there was one moment in 2008 I’ll never forget: we were shooting the exterior scenes around the campfire and the search for Brandy.  The rain started coming in and we had one shot left which I really wanted to get, it was important to me and we didn’t know how we’d be able to do it since we weren’t going to have anymore exterior night shoots planned. I asked TJ if we could fake the one shot I needed inside the cabin by faking trees and campfire…TJ thought about it a bit and like Jenn Kelly with make-up, looked at me and said “yeah, let’s do this” and away we went, recreating an exterior shot inside the small cabin where we had shot so much of the film. To this day no one knows which shot it is and that’s a testament to TJ’s abilities and the rest of the photography crew…which brings me to 2009 and a new band of brothers.

In 2009 we went back to add some more footage for the film and we couldn’t get our original photography crew back so we hired Ryan Thompson to shoot the new footage and it wasn’t going to be an easy task. I had decided I wanted to add a lot of new footage, both inside and outside the cabin. Ryan and his crew (Mike Everett, Ben Hippley and Dan Pinnerud) had not worked on the film prior to 2009 and we only had the time to have a few meetings before beginning shooting. This shoot was trickier than almost any other shoot.  We needed to match footage from 2007 and 2008 and keep continuity both inside and outside and this crew only had the footage from those prior two years to work on along with notes from TJ since he couldn’t be there. What makes it even trickier were the changes the actors had gone through over those years and we were not shooting in the same season as the previous years.  Lastly, we were shooting the exterior scenes in a different woods as well as shooting at the cabin without the white car or truck which had both been gone since 2007. I couldn’t imagine being in Ryan’s shoes as the film had already been getting some good buzz and here was this new DP who had never worked with me and he’s gotta figure out my style while also figuring out how TJ had shot everything previously. It was a really amazing shoot and watching Ryan and his crew work and get the footage to match both photographically and style-wise was astonishing.

I could go on and on about these guys but I’d probably start rambling more than I have already done. Through all of the screenings I have not had anyone mention any drastic changes regarding the photography or the locations and this is all a testament to the amazing work these guys did.