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FONU2 announces film, financing deal
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FONU2, Inc. announced Monday that in co-production with Myles Nestel and Craig Chapman of The Solution Entertainment Group LLC, Scott Mann and James Edward Barker of Mann Made Films Ltd, Steven Schneider and Wendy Rhoads, it has signed agreements to finance and produce the motion picture film “Mara.”

Steven Schneider’s films, according to Box Office Mojo, have a cumulative lifetime U.S. box office of over $553 million, with each film averaging $61.5 million in box office.

The Solution Entertainment Group will be managing all international sales for the film. Moon River will invest $800,000 as equity in the film, which will be shot and produced entirely on location in coastal Georgia.

The Moon River financing is being provided by a New York-based private equity firm, and is collateralized by the project, with no stock conversion features. The balance of the approximate $2.5 million film budget will be financed through a combination of foreign sales and tax credits.

The film was introduced by the company’s newly-appointed Mary Aloe (executive producer) and Dan Grodnik (producer), heads of packaging and production respectively, through the Grodnik/Aloe Productions deal with Moon River.

“Mara” is based upon a real medical condition called “sleep paralysis.” Multiple cultures around the world over many millennia have real life stories about a sleep demon also known as demonic attacks also known as “Hag Syndrome.” 

“Mara” is a well-researched film based upon real life phenomena and is happening to an estimated 40 percent of humans around the world. It is when a person is in this state of “sleep paralysis” that they feel a presence of a supernatural malevolent being which immobilizes the person as if it is sitting on his/her chest. The word “night-mare” or “nightmare” was used to describe this phenomenon before the word acquired its’ modern, more general meaning.

FONU2 is a publicly-traded company that operates under the name Moon River Studios. Moon River has a public-private partnership with the Effingham County Industrial Development Authority, and the state of Georgia, to develop a full service film production facility in Effingham,