A dropped orange led to a $2,000 debut heading to Oldenburg
A dropped orange in a grocery store led Providence, Rhode Island filmmaker Matthew Osubor to his debut feature, and that film, Big Daddy's Flowers, will have its first public screening at the Oldenburg Film Festival, The Hollywood Reporter reported on 17 September 2026.
Osubor picked up the orange for director Alexandre Rockwell. The two men got talking in the aisle. Rockwell later hired Osubor to work on his film The Projectionist, according to the same report.
Big Daddy's Flowers is a crime comedy with satire. Osubor wrote and directed it and also plays the lead. His character is a flower delivery driver who is behind on rent and in debt, then realises he works for a crime boss called Big Daddy.
The production was tiny. It was shot without permits and without a paid cast, with an official budget of $2,000, The Hollywood Reporter reported. Rockwell and his wife, actor Karyn Parsons, housed Osubor rent-free for the duration of the shoot.
The arrangement grew out of a practical idea. Osubor proposed making a feature as his film school instead of paying for classes, and Rockwell agreed to support him. Rockwell has taught at New York University. He directed In the Soup, starring Steve Buscemi and Seymour Cassel, which won the Sundance grand jury prize in 1992.
Parsons is a familiar face to television viewers. She is known for playing Hilary Banks on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
What makes this stand out is the chain of events. A chance meeting led to a crew job. The job led to a mentorship. The mentorship led to a 74-minute feature made for less than many short films cost.
Oldenburg named Big Daddy's Flowers among the first titles for its 2026 selection, The Hollywood Reporter reported on 18 August 2026. The 33rd Internationales Filmfest Oldenburg runs from 16 to 20 September 2026. Its programme lists the film as a USA 2026 production, shown in original version, with a runtime of 74 minutes, according to the Oldenburg Film Festival.
The festival lists the cast as Osubor, Ken Brownstein, George Leonard and Paulette Thomas. The festival programme notes the film was made under Rockwell's mentorship. For Osubor, the grocery run ended on a cinema screen.
