University of Oregon Cinema Studies alumni Brad Burke (2015), Claire Haines (2015), Bronwyn Thomas (2020), and Minjoo Jang (2021) have a feature film getting its World Premiere at the Merced Queer Film Festival in Merced, California on May 21st. Their film, The Last Day of Retrograde, is nominated for 6 awards at the event, including Best Feature, Best Comedy Feature, Best Director, Best Female Identifying Performer (two nominations), and Best Male Identifying Performer. The film has already won Best Queer Feature at the Bright International Film Festival during a private screening with festival judges.

Burke was hired as a Producer early in the filmmaking process by former Eugene resident,Haley Baldwin. He quickly hired Thomas as the film’s Production Coordinator, having known and worked with her since 2015. He then reached out to contacts within the Cinema Studies department and discovered Jang, who he brought on as a Production Assistant on the film.

“This is my fifth film working with Bronwyn, I’ll bring her onboard any production I work on, she is a jack of all trades who can fill in any role needed to ensure a production goes as smoothly as possible,” Burke said.

After production began, Burke hired long time collaborator Claire Haines as the film’s editor. This is the team's 10th project together, going all the way back to when they were students at the University of Oregon.

The film describes itself as a queer-centric dark comedy about one insane day. It is written and directed by first time director Lukas Sarnow, who wrote about many of their experiences growing up gender queer in the early 2010s. Tickets for the premiere can be found at mercedqueerfilmfest.org. Updates about the film are regularly posted to the film’s instagram page instagram.com/thelastdayofretrograde.