The Blair Witch Project: Film Screening and Q&A with Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael C. Williams

Screening followed by a Q&A with all three actors, moderated by Daysia Leneé Hiller of Youth FX

The Blair Witch Project is a found-footage horror film about three student filmmakers who disappear while documenting a local legend in the Maryland woods, with the story presented through their recovered footage.

The 1999 film became a cultural phenomenon thanks to its raw, low-budget realism, improvised dialogue, and groundbreaking viral marketing campaign that blurred the line between fiction and reality, helping it become one of the most successful independent films of all time.

Central to its impact are the extraordinary, fully committed performances by Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael C. Williams, whose authenticity and emotional intensity made the film’s terror feel disturbingly real.

Now, in a rare, limited-engagement tour, all three actors will appear live on stage after a full movie screening, sharing behind-the-scenes stories and answering audience questions about the making of this groundbreaking film.

Daysia Leneé Hiller, lead educator and creative producer at Youth FX in Albany, will moderade the Q&A following the screening.

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Daysia Leneé Hiller (she/her) is an educator, filmmaker, screenwriter, and director whose work explores the emotional depth of human connection and relationships, centering the beauty and complexity of the Black experience.

A 2021–2022 Fellow of the Youth FX Upstate Arts2Work Fellowship, she directed her first documentary, Redi Love, which premiered on Season 14 of PBS’s TVFilm and screened at The Big Eddy Film Festival (2022) and the Renaissance Black Film Fest (2023). She is currently in production on Khabir, an experimental documentary examining homelessness through a fragmented portrayal of the human body.

Daysia is a lead educator and creative producer at Youth FX, teaching digital filmmaking to young people, while also working on short films and documentaries through the organization’s production company, Rogue FX. She holds a B.A. in Sociology from SUNY Albany, with double minors in Psychology and Film Studies.