The wonderful Rose McGowan is certainly no stranger to the horror genre, making turns in films like Scream, Planet Terror and Jawbreaker, so it should come as no surprise that her first directorial effort—the short film Dawn—is dark and plenty disturbing. The acclaimed short made some noise during its festival run, and now it’s online for all to witness.
Coming in at 17-minutes, Dawn is an unshakable story about a young teenage girl who longs for something or someone to free her from her sheltered life. But when she finds this freedom through a handsome young man, she’s lured down a dark and unfortunate path. Set in the ’60s, Dawn has that wonderfully innocent charm to it, much like its titular character, making McGowan’s short all the more painful.
It stars Tara Lynne Barr, John Grady, Hannah Marks, Reiley McClendon and Julia Sanford.
themissingreel.com 
This short left me feeling quite sad and angry! It’s tragic that this kind of thing actually does happen in real life. Great short though!
Oh, for sure. It’s really does leave you pretty mad, which means McGowan accomplished exactly what she set out to do.
Really liked this short.Thanks for the heads up!
She said something very intersting in a DP/30 Interview:
That she was going to film a Flannery O´Connor short and all of a sudden she lost the rights to the story.
“Dawn” has a plot similar to a short story by Flannery called “A Good man is hard to find”…but
nonetheless is a great short.
I didn’t know that, thanks for sharing! I’d like to see what else she has in store for other feature directing projects.