“…We didn’t do anything right about making this,” says rookie director Rowan Joseph, who comes to film after a long theater career. “We didn’t play the festivals because we wanted this out before the election; it’s a one-man film. We had everything working against us (including the show’s tiny, just-over-$80,000 budget), yet here we are.”

Joseph overstates only slightly. True, an independent film getting picked up for distribution is essentially a one-in-a- million sort of long shot. But the effort is helped by the fact that the novel remains timely after 70 years, and, perhaps more importantly, that the one person in the cast is Ben McKenzie, who played Ryan Atwood in Fox’s “The O.C” and appeared in “Junebug,” another indie film.

“I couldn’t resist this,” says McKenzie, joining the trio in the booth by phone. “I hadn’t read the book, but once I knew the story, I knew it was a great role. And when I read the novel and the script (by Bradley Rand Smith), I realized just how strong the material was.”

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