Vendetta: A Christmas Story is a 1997 independent film produced by Brendan Powell Smith, Sean Smith, Jonathan Field, and Sophia Field. Shot in and around the Boston area, and originally released on San Francisco cable access, Vendetta went on to win audience favorite at the 1998 IMAGE festival in San Francisco and was nominated as a top ten finalist in the Nouveaux Talents category in FIFI 2000, for which director Jonathan Field was flown to France and appeared breifly on French TV. Excerpts were also shown on the French television show JTNet, which selected Vendetta as Website of the Week.
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Story
Vendetta is essentially a single-episode parody of an 80's buddy cop show. However it is also a would-be holiday special. As such, it features Santa Claus, in addition to the main characters (two hard-nosed detective types) chasing him down. Featuring elaborate gunplay and chase sequences for such a low-budget film, Vendetta stands out as a prime example of guerrilla filmmaking.
Episodes
Originally planned as a single 40 minute installment, Vendetta proved too much work to complete in one pass. The first half was released as a standalone episode in 1997 and the second episode (actually the second half of the first episode) was released in 2001. There is also a pilot episode that bears no connection to the main story line. As of 2007, no further episodes are planned. All three existing episodes are available on the Vendetta website.
DVD
While available online via the Vendetta website and YouTube, there has also been an offer since 2004 to receive a free DVD by sending a self-addressed stamped envelope.
