Josh Garretson tied for Best Director of a Short Film and Kenna Denali won Best Actress of a Short Film at Scorpiusfest 2023 for “Water Babies”.
Joshua has garnered success in many sides of the entertainment industry. Starting out as an actor at the age of 7, he grew up in the Metro-Detroit theatre scene. At the age of 21, he made the life-changing decision to move out and go on tour with the Big Apple Circus, where he worked with many big names, such as Neil Patrick Harris, Jimmy Fallon, and many others. Now living in Utah, he creates digital content that is consistently seen by millions of people around the world.
Working with this cast and crew was a perfect storm of creativity. A couple months before starting production, Executive Producer and Co-Writer, Warren Workman, approached me about an idea he had been working on with his daughter, Chloie Workman. Water Babies, while disguised as a horror film, uses urban legends and folklore as a catalyst to explore the grief and overall toll that motherhood, whether prospective or postpartum, can have on women. The film follows Lizzy (Kenna Denali) as she goes through excruciating pain and sadness, while her husband, Jake (Spencer Jarman), tries his best to understand what she’s suffering and give her the support she needs. Both Kenna Denali and Spencer Jarman give transformative performances, with a clear vision of who their characters are. They lived in these characters and knew them inside and out, which allowed us to put our trust in them and take more risks on set. This allowance to experiment, as well as the hard work put in by our crew, results in a film that is both visually and tonally unique. With a small crew, less than two days to shoot, and a deadline only a month from our wrap date, every person on this crew had to wear multiple hats and stretched themselves to reach our goal. I am eternally grateful to everyone who worked on this production, and endlessly proud of what we were able to create.
