SMCC grad films new movie

SANDUSKY — A 2020 St. Mary Central Catholic High School graduate completed filming his newest movie. Jonathan Perry's "Sentinelese," about the isolated people of North Sentinel Island in Asia, is in post-production. A release date hasn't been announced. "'Sentinelese' is backed by collaborative research from world experts including government officials, poacher informants and lead anthropologists from India and Thailand," the film's news release states. "It's the first live-action film about North Sentinel Island, a restricted island located within India's Bay of Bengal." The movie's plot: "Offshore India's infamous North Sentinel Island, a Sentinelese boy has been pulled out to sea and is helplessly out of reach from his tribal band," the film's synopsis states. "The child is then rescued by a Burmese fishing slave and taken aboard a Thai-contracted vessel that has run aground while poaching the restricted surrounding waters. Defenseless against the hostile tribe with the Indian coast guard closing in, the trapped poachers are running out of time and options to escape into international waters." For research, Perry collaborated for two years with Shivappa Awaradi, a former government official of Andaman and Nicobar Islands who led the first-ever friendly contact expeditions with the Sentinelese tribe. They are the only tribe that's had, according to Awaradi, "absolute isolation" from the rest of the world. "The goal of this film is to give the audience an opportunity to get up close to the tribe, based on anthropological research, down to their genetic attributes," Perry said. "I hope that the island stays protected and isolated from outsiders, this film provides us a window into their world in the safest manner possible." "Sentinelese" was filmed over the course of 30 days late last summer on the dual island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean. The international production employed more than 70 cast and crew members from multiple Caribbean countries. "To accurately recreate the North Sentinel Island and the Sentinelese people, the production crew leveled a beach landscape and constructed functional outrigger canoes, weapons and garments, based on archival resources from the actual tribe," according to the news release. "A 102-foot-long sea rescue vessel was converted into a Thai poaching ship, loaded with multiple cargo trucks of fishing equipment from around the island." This upcoming short film follows "Crookery," which was filmed in Ottawa County in December 2020 and written and directed by Perry. "Crookery," a film about an ordinary family evening's descent during a home intrusion, streams free on the Muybridge YouTube channel. Perry's first short film, "Subnivean," debuted in 2019 and was picked up for distribution by Amazon Prime Video. Perry is a junior at Ohio State University and works out of Santa Monica, California, with Simple Films and Activision Blizzard as a lead writer and director of the hit game, Call of Duty. He also recently wrapped up an upcoming Hulu television show, which was filmed throughout Columbus and is "in the development stage for a large-scale movie likely to be filmed in Ohio after the distribution of 'Sentinelese,'" the news release states. Future screening dates, sneak previews and exclusive behind-the-scenes content for "Sentinelese" can be found on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @sentinelesefilm.