Bruce Fessier
The Desert Sun

Palm Springs-based director Christian Sesma will begin work Wednesday on a new action-comedy film that will enable several of the principals to work close to home.

“Shoot the Hero,” written and directed by Sesma, will be produced by La Quinta actress and entrepreneur Denise DuBarry Hay. It features her daughter, Samantha Lockwood, and Palm Springs-based actor Fred Williamson.

Jason Mewes of “Clerks” and “Zack and Miri Make A Porno,” Danny Trejo of “Desperado” and “Heat,” and Nick Turturro of “NYPD Blue” fame, also will appear.

The movie is about a couple who unintentionally become involved in a botched jewel heist while shopping for wedding rings. The casino owner who engineered the heist hires two hit men to clean up the mess, and, as the couple tries to extricate themselves, they discover new things about each other.

Sesma, whose 2004 short film, “Cycles,” was screened at the Palm Springs International ShortFest, also has written and produced the feature films “6:30,” a teen thriller, and “On Bloody Sunday,” a teen horror film.

Hay, whose entertainment media company, Kaswit, Inc., develops and funds infomercials and films, was first approached to finance “Shoot the Hero” by Leanna Bonamici of Casablanca Studios, where Sesma shot some of “On Bloody Sunday.”

When Lockwood told her a few months later she had won a role in “Shoot the Hero” from a casting call, Hay said, “I decided it must be fate.

“After that, things just sort of fell together,” she said. “I found out Christian was still looking for financing, and I was looking for something to invest in. ‘Shoot the Hero’ made sense for me, both creatively and financially, so I decided to get involved.”

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