In Anthology Film Archive's Maya Deren Theater, seven directors showcase their work as a part of the New Filmmakers program. The program is designed to give new and upcoming filmmakers a chance to showcase their work in front of a public audience on the big screen. The topics for the night were extremely diverse, covering everything from environmental activism, to a disconnected relationship, and even alien abduction.
The first film, Castle in the Sky, showcased a few panoramic shots of New York City's roof top water towers which moved around against a perfectly clear sky. The four minute film forced viewers to closely examine not only beautiful architecture, but also the environment in which it resides.
Next came the environmental film Passage to Coney Island. The film examined Coney Island's waterfront and foreshadowed the possible consequences of pollution in the water such as enormous crabs. After all the screenings were finished, Feigenbaum spoke about the basis for some of the elements in her film. Feigenbaum said that the ominous voice that yelled "get out of the water", came from an experience that she had on Coney Island where she heard somebody yelling the same phrase.
Afterwards came a noir inspired film titled Prologue which told a story about a 1950's museum thief. The plot follows a transaction that takes place between the seller, YYY and the buyer, a gang boss ZZZ over and ancient mayan artifact. The artifact unexpectedly turns out to have special powers which prompts the price to rise so high that can only be paid in blood. Besides a few awkwardly spoken lines in the beginning by YYY, this films interesting plot and excellent lighting hooked me into the story enough to consider watching the sequel.
Sharply deviating from the previous films home movie qualities, Subject 100503 takes place in the future where a capture female named 100503 undergoes brutal and intense observation by scientists. She undergoes phyatric evaluation where the psychologist inadvertently causes the subject to remember her name "Molly". This causes the leader of the scientists to become angry with both molly and the physiatrist which reveals her true feeling about Molly, saying "we aim to eliminate those like you from our society", referring the physiatrist evaluation of molly which called her "creative". The impressive camerawork lighting and high quality props make this film memorable.
Coming back to New York City, specifically Brooklyn, the next film Night Life, followed the life of a mundane girl who struggles to find work and happiness because of her insignificant background. Although she lives a sub par life, she has big dreams which are held in a large collage which showcases many inspirational magazene cutouts. The film goes from her unsuccesful profesional life to a personal life that doesnt seem much better. it starts with her sending pictures to a contact named "UNDERAGE DONT REPLY!!!!". She then gets in touch with a guy who ends up cockblocking himself by telling her about how his sister possibly knows her because of the risque pictures that she put on a website. This prompts her to tear her dream collage into pieces. The films angsty narrative doesn't quite reach the level of relatable, and the lack of music in the film adds to this distance, However the acting saves the film from needing a complete makeover.
The following film, Acoustic Space, was a longer film that started as a play. The charming dialogue, or lack of one, takes place during a fancy dinner between, a high profile add agent and a woman whose consoling her friend about her recent divorce. The two obsesivly answer phone calls during dinner which preventing them from ever talking to eachother. Their waiter starts to get fed up with the couples constant cell phone usage which prompts him to add in a few witty one line observations to the dinner at first, but gradually he inserts himself into the tables conversation. This is when the waiter espouses his wisdom to the couple, saying that this type of interaction is exactly whatMcLuhan was talking about when he coined the term acoustic space. Then the waiter proclaims that the woman is actually a lesbian, to which she confesses that she's not only a lesbian, but that she has been cheating on her date this whole time with her friend. She storms out and the waiter says "I told you so". This was my absolute favorite film of the night. It excelled far past the other movies of the night in all areas from its acting, plot, dialogue, and filming. I will surely follow this director and his films in the future.
Wrapping up the night was Frontier, a film where a journalist from NYC goes to the small town of Frontier to investigate the recent government land buyup. The journalist, starts her investigation by talking to a local hick who informs her that on a recent fishing trip, his friend was abducted by aliens and that the government property purchase is being set up to take the place of area 51. She obviously doesn't believe his story and writes a comic description of the encounter for her editor. The film foreshadows that the local might be telling the truth when he finds that his friend has come back, only now he now has glowing green eyes.
This was my first time at a New Filmmakers event and I will be sure to return. Prior to coming to the event, I had some fear that all the films would resemble the first attempt at making a movie that my friends and I did (which needless to say turned out to be unwatchable bad) however I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of most of the films
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