Local Zerfoss Studios Begins Production of Second Feature Film ‘Wieland’

INDIANA, Pa. – Zerfoss Studios has begun production on its second feature film ‘Wieland,’ based on the famed novel of the same name.

The film is based on the novel Wieland or the Transformation by the Philadelphia native and the acclaimed Father of American Literature, Charles Brocken Brown.

Production began in upstate New York and northeast Pennsylvania on August 14.

The film stars Emily Lapisardi and Mike Markoff, star of CW network’s Death Squad.

Wieland is a feature film adaptation of the first successful American Gothic Horror novel. The film was favored by Mary Shelley, who kept it beside her while writing Frankenstein. Her love for the book inspired having a combined two-book volume of Wieland published with Frankenstein and naming her only daughter after the main character, Clara.

The adaptation written by Cody Knotts and his wife Emily Lapisardi will be Gothic Horror Musical with a musical tour de force of 19th-century songs primarily composed by Pittsburgh native Stephen Foster including Beautiful Dreamer, I Will Be True to Thee, She was All the World to Me and Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming.

The music was arranged by Ms. Lapisardi, who is Music Director at the United States Military Academy and lives with her husband in the Catskills region of New York.

The film’s cast’s title character Wieland will be played by Christian Peterson, a German-English actor who trained at Oxford University with the British American Drama Academy in association with the Yale School of Drama.

The infamous villain Carwin will be portrayed by Mike Markoff, best known for portraying Ethan Brooks on the CW Networks Death Squad.

Zerfoss Studios was created by Indiana County native James Zerfoss as part of a production deal with C&V Films, a New York/Pennsylvania Film Production Company. The production deal calls for the creation of one to two films annually focused on producing films based on 18th and 19th-century literature. C&V Films’ slogan is History, Mystery, and Memory, and the creation of films in the style of the famed British horror studio Hammer Films, Italian film directors Dario Argento and Mario Bav, and horror icon and Pittsburgh native George Romero.

Zerfoss Studios’ long-term plans call for the creation of a sound stage and film studio in Pennsylvania in cooperation with Zerfoss Properties LLC, a real estate holding company owned by Mr. Zerfoss.

C&V Films is the creation of film director Cody Knotts and film producer Vincent Ruffalo, both natives of Washington County, PA. Knotts and Ruffalo have produced six feature films and one documentary most notably Pro Wrestlers vs. Zombies.

Knotts has directed famous personalities including Rowdy Roddy Piper, Doug Bradley, Olympic Gold Medalist Kurt Angle, Horror Icon Maria Olsen, WWE Hall of Famer Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Horror Icon Richard John Walters and famed wrestler Matt Hardy.