EXCLUSIVE: Indie production and sales outfit XYZ Films is teaming with John Hegeman’s newly-launched genre label, Distant Corners Entertainment, to produce feature anthology, Holidays. A group of subversive tales fashioned around globally recognized celebrations like Christmas, Easter, Halloween and Mother’s Day, the vignettes will be helmed by indie and genre filmmakers including Kevin Smith, Gary Shore (Dracula Untold) and Matt Johnson (The Dirties). The cast is expected to feature well-known names.

XYZ will launch global sales at the EFM this week. The project is already in production and reteams XYZ with Smith after Tusk and Yoga Hosers, as well as Johnson whose Operation Avalanche will be released by Lionsgate this year.

Also currently on board to helm segments are Scott Stewart (Dark Skies); Nick McCarthy (The Pact); Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch (Starry Eyes); Sarah Smith (The Midnight Swim); and Anthony Scott Burns, whose short, Manifold, made the 2013 Viewfinder List which also included Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash. More directors will be announced in the coming weeks.

“Holidays is a great opportunity for some of the most creative and twisted minds in the genre space today to really let loose and have fun,” said Hegeman. This is the first project going into production for Distant Corners, which aims to launch four-six genre franchise properties annually.

Hegeman will produce Holidays with Tim Connors and Adam Egypt Mortimer, along with XYZ’s Kyle Franke and Aram Tertzakian. Executive producers are Will Rowbotham, writers Andrew Barrer and Gabe Ferrari, and XYZ’s Nate Bolotin and Nick Spicer.

Shore will produce his segment through his company, ArtCastle Productions, with producing partner Jonathan Loughran. Funding for Holidays was secured through James Avery of Aldwych Capital Partners.