MOULTRIE, Ga. — Brothers Beau Garner and Liam Dow recently won at national and international film festivals for their film, “The Adventures of the Gray Hat Hacker.”

Garner and Dow both attended schools here in Colquitt County. Garner graduated Colquitt County High School in 2010 and his younger brother Dow attended elementary school before they and their mother moved out to Los Angeles to further their artistic careers, Garner said in a recent interview. 

“I have always been a musician,” he said. “Originally I had come out to study music. For my day job I work as a music teacher and do recording gigs.”

Dow is a dual enrollment student who plans to make acting a full career.

“I want to be an actor. This is a great first step to getting my name out there and I hope to see more coming soon,” he said.

Dow has already been featured in other short films and the daytime soap opera, “Days of Our Lives.”

“The Adventure of the Gray Hat Hacker” is a short film featuring both brothers. Garner directed the film and played the A.I. character, Petri, opposite Dow who plays the lead and created the character. 

The film has had much success since its debut Jan. 21. Most recently their FX Artist, Md Abu Saleh won Best Visual Effects in the IndieX Film Festival for the film. 

Garner and Dow have both received personal awards for the film. Garner has won Best 1st Time Director and Dow has won Best Young Actor, according to Garner. The film itself won a Gold Award at the Vegas Movie Awards in the Sci/Fi category. 

Their film has also been featured internationally at the Anatolia International Film Festival and the Venice Shorts Film Festival. 

The brothers said that the most surprising part was the production and post production times.

“We wrote the story in about a month, recorded the thing in around two days and then spent almost a year making sure the visual effects and the edits were just where we wanted them,” stated Garner.

The film follows The Gray Hat Hacker and his A.I. sidekick, Petri, as they try to find his mentor, Marina, who has mysteriously disappeared. The film is based on a comic book of the same name also created by Dow.

The brothers’ end goal for the project is to make the story a feature film. 

“Whether it be with a producer like Amazon or Netflix or some other studio, we’re not done with this project yet,” Garner said.

They said they’re also working to bring a film festival here to Georgia. They are currently trying to decide between Savannah and Atlanta as cities to host the festival. 

The brothers are looking forward to the potential of other film festivals such Matrix Fest and AFI Theatre Fest, both of which attract many potential producers, according to Dow.

“The Adventures of the Gray Hat Hacker” is not currently available to view publicly but the comic book of the same name is available on their website www.thegrayhathacker.com.