Synopsis: Sloan (Clara Mamet) has a not-so-low-key crush on Neckface, an anonymous graffiti artist. Neckface (Raúl Castillo) has less-than-resolved intimacy issues and a no relationship policy. Which he makes abundantly clear to his obsessive fan girl. That is, until Neckface realizes he and Sloan may be the same kind of crazy; and embarks on a mission to win her back. Which may or may not involve exploiting his roommate (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), stealing a much-coveted pair of sneakers, and incurring the wrath of a ferocious lunch lady.
Appearing in the New York Shorts Program at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival 2020, Sloan Hearts Neckface is something special. It’s an incredibly engaging 15 minutes. It was like watching a tennis match of NYC characters. As a New Yorker, it really felt like home. It’s visually vibrant and quite emotionally turbulent. I was lucky enough to speak with filmmaker Justin Fair on what makes Sloan Hearts Neckface as unique as it is. Check out our interview and the teaser trailer below.
Did the initial script look and feel like the now finished film?Yes! I hope so anyway. I hope we captured what was great about the script. Some things we captured quite literally from what was written, a lot we cut, and a lot we elaborated on, but I hope the essence remained intact.
I adore that each character has a signature color. Whose decision was that?
It’s great to hear that translates! We had an extremely talented Art Director, Lydia White, who lives in a Shell House. She created these beautiful mood boards consisting of a lot of Blues and Reds and we decided to run with that. I wanted not only for the characters to have a certain color, but also to have those colors impose themselves on the other characters at certain times of the story.
Have you ever had someone who was, shall we say, “a little more than enthusiastic”, pursue you?
Haha. I can’t say that I’ve ever been pursued in the way Sloan pursues Neckface in the film. I’ve never had that pleasure.
Who does the art on the letters?
We had a whole team of artists work on the art. I thought it important that each character’s artwork came from a different artist. The Neckface character actually had several artists: Jeff Weinberg did the sketches on the Priority Mail stickers, Landon Webb designed all but one of the tags. The big practical tag that Neckface rips off the fence was done by John Gagliano. Jenny Herbert created all of Sloan’s artwork. Henry White did Lester’s portraits of Sloan, and Ruth Sylvestre did the other Lester drawings. Really proud of all their work, thank you for asking.
Are Neckface’s tags real?
Absolutely not haha! There’s actually only one practical tag in the film and that was one made on our own materials. The rest of the tags that appear on subway beams, buildings, and monuments were created using Superdurables.com materials and then added afterward by a great VFX guy, Matt Brant. He did all the compositing, tracking and rotoscoping.
I love that this is essentially a string of monologues. Did Ian Grody sit in on casting?
It is a string of monologues! Initially, it was just two monologues that Ian wrote for a magazine, if I’m not mistaken. Later he expanded it to several more monologues for an evening of staged readings at NYU- which is where we met. He eventually adapted it into the short film script. Ninety percent of the actors in the film are friends of Ian and mine. We never held auditions.
Do you have a favorite short film?
No, I can’t say I do. I don’t get to see enough of them. There are a lot of places online to see them now, but I prefer to see them in a theater. The earliest short films I remember seeing are Charlie Chaplin’s. I still have a big love for them.
What directors inspire you?
So many greats. I love both the classics and contemporary stuff. For inspiration, I look to Scorsese, Cassavetes, Kubrick, Ozu, Billy Wilder, Hitchcock, Fincher, Sofia Coppola, Oliver Stone, Michael Mann, Denis Villeneuve, Wes Anderson
What is the most rewarding part of directing for you, and also what is the most challenging?
The most rewarding part of directing is for me is being surprised by my collaborators. If your collaborators feel like they can take risks and be heard and their contributions will be honored (as opposed to having their job/performance dictated to them), then they will give to the film in beautiful and surprising ways. In other words, if I’ve created the space for everyone involved to feel like they own a piece of the film, then we all got to do what we came to do and that love will show up on the screen. That’s when I feel most successful as a director. The most challenging part of directing is the discipline of rolling with the punches because things will always go wrong. When they do, the challenge is to embrace it as a chance for creative problem-solving. I try and trust that it’s just the film finding its own way. It pretty much always leads to something better than what was planned.
The directorial debut from Abraham Adeyemi, ‘No More Wings‘ in the Don’t Look Back program was the winner of the Best Narrative Short Competition at Tribeca 2020. Once you experience the film for yourself, you’ll immediately understand why. With captivating storytelling, in a mere 10 minutes, you will experience two lifetimes of memories, regrets, and choices. There is a heavy cyclical feeling you cannot shake as you watch. The authenticity of the writing, directing, and performances will stick with you long after the credits. I was lucky enough to interview Abraham during the festival and get to peek behind the curtain of the process and the mindset. I cannot wait to see what is coming to audiences next.
Out of this world Sci-Fi shorts.
What a knock out world premiere for director Kourosh Ahari. Beautifully lush cinematography (including some early haunting POV shots) props up the richness of The Night. The score adds a layer or jarring dread that is simply gorgeous. While the script skillfully utilizes a number of classic tropes, it is also stacked with a multitude of original imagery that unnerves the viewer from the very beginning. I was thrown for a loop more times than I can count. The heightened sound editing also pushes The Night into next-level scary. The plot will have you questioning your own sanity. Is this a dispute between exhausted new parents? Is this an alcohol-induced hallucination? Or is this hotel housing unwanted guests?
Performances are so strong you will quickly forget that the film is predominantly in Farsi. As Parasite director Boon Jong-Ho so eloquently stated at this year’s Golden Globes, “Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.” This is the most important quote in cinema right now. Kourosh Ahari’s THE NIGHT is a heart-pounding and twisted watch. Santa Barbara International Film Festival is lucky to host its world premiere. This film should be on every genre fan’s radar this year.
The uneasy dread comes into the script immediately. An old colonial home in the middle of nowhere is a great place for fear to live. Add a locked door? Yup. I wanna open it knowing full well that’s a terrible idea because obviously bad things hide behind it. But don’t we always want what we can’t have?
Performances are incredibly natural. The chemistry between Simone Policano and Jeff Ayars is magic. The sound editing brings This Is Our Home into another terrifying realm. Brooklyn Horror Film Festival goers must have had an extra visceral experience in a theater. I will fully admit that I covered my eyes and got chills more than once. I had no idea what would be coming next and it scared the shit out of me. There are some truly startling scenarios that will keep you hanging on, every single second with your heart pounding. Beautifully framed and stunningly scored, This Is Our Home proves that if we’re not very careful, grief can consume us permanently.
East Coast Premiere
Suleiman’s whimsical, yet thoughtful film IT MUST BE HEAVEN will be the Opening Night presentation Friday, October 25 at the DGA New York Theater. The film features the beloved filmmaker observing the goings-on around him in Nazareth, Paris, and France. Through his eyes, we see moments, and fragments of life and human interaction that can surprise and delight one moment, and be very familiar the next.
A 40th Anniversary screening of King Hu’s RAINING IN THE MOUNTAIN will be presented on Friday, November 1 at AMC Lincoln Square as the CineCine Film Festival’s Centerpiece Screening. Voted as one of the “100 Greatest Chinese Films” by the Hong Kong Film Awards. Beautifully photographed, the film is set in a Buddhist monastery during the Ming Dynasty in turmoil over who will be appointed as the next abbot. And tensions only get worse when someone steals a venerated sutra from the Buddhist scriptures.
Maoz’s LEBANON won numerous awards during it’s release ten years ago, including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. The claustrophobic and bitingly tense drama places us with an Israeli army unit in a tank during a mission to Lebanon. With a POV relegated to what can be seen from the perspective of the cramped soldiers in the tank, the atrocities of war mix with a veritable stew of humanity inside the tank itself. The film will serve as the Closing Night selection when it screens Sunday, November 3 at French Institute Alliance Française.
Two North American premieres head the main slate selection of films. Takahisa Zeze’s THE CHRYSANTHEMUM AND THE GUILLOTINE follows two female sumo wrestlers trying to escape the abuses of their past, while two other women – members of an anarchist group start to watch their wrestling matches.
Lu Zhang’s FUKUOKA looks at two old schoolmates reconnecting, a mysterious woman who enters the picture and the love triangle that ensues. Zhang is set to attend the screening on Friday, November 1 at AMC Lincoln Square.
Other highlights include Lisa Zi Xiang’s award-winning A DOG BARKING AT THE MOON, about a Chinese family saga, commencing with the wife’s discovery of her husband’s homosexuality. The film was a winner at Berlin, aGLIFF, and Inside Out, among other film festivals.
Rounding out the Special Screenings, Halloween will also feature a 30th Anniversary presentation of John Woo’s influential classic THE KILLER. Chow Yun-Fat’s disillusioned assassin accepts one last hit in hopes of using his earnings to restore vision to a singer he accidentally blinded, only to be double-crossed by his boss.
Naoko Yamada’s A SILENT VOICE will be screened as a special Tribute to Kyoto Animation. In the film, a young man loses friends after he bullies a deaf girl so much she moves away. As an adult, he decides he must make amends. The CineCina Film Festival will donate all proceeds from the screening to assist in the reconstruction of Kyoto Animation, which recently suffered a disastrous fire to their production offices in Japan.
Serif Gören and Yilmaz Güney’s YOL (1982) will also be the subject of a special screening which will mark the U.S. premiere of a newly-restored digital print of the film. YOL is about five Turkish prisoner who face oppression from everyone during a one-week leave, won the Palme d’Or at Cannes as well as an award from the National Board of Review.
Awesomely jarring nightmares, a killer soundtrack, combined with insanely good performances by the entire cast makes for a fantastic indie horror. There is more than face value to The Shed. Yes, there is a sick monster and buckets of blood, but all that aside the film speaks to much bigger issues. Our lead Stan has all the makings of a kid that’s about to lose it on society. He lost his parents, he’s in the custody of an abusive grandfather, he gets bullied at school. Stan and best friend Dommer are just trying to survive high school.
The 4th edition of Brooklyn Horror Film Festival officially opened last night. Clearly, I want to tell you to go see all the films but as it is highly unlikely you are a Timelord I’ve made some suggestions. Narrowing down 5 films to see at this festival is insanely difficult. BHFF is a unique fest that brings genre filmmaking from around the world to fans who love horror and have an appreciation for the art and passion that goes into getting indie films made and seen! Without further ado, here are a handful of treats you can catch this starting tomorrow!
ZOMBI CHILD
This film has a unique narrative style. Long takes establishing backstory are a stark contrast to the teen angst driven by voice-over lover letters. Weaving the strange but true history of zombification and a young girl’s adolescent heartbreak, Zombi Child presents a story about the lengths we’ll go for love. Cinematically beautiful natural light adds to the atmosphere. Performances are everywhere from subtly grounded to flamboyant and frightening. The script is unexpected but the end result is a bit of a fever dream that will hypnotize audiences.
The admissions process is cutthroat. It is based on an essay and an interview. It begins with an AA and then an even luckier few continue on to the BA program. Students are studying things like Plato, Mandarin, Debate, and Calculus. They are earning their degrees in the same way any other student would outside prison walls. Professors do not give pass/fail grades. They are legitimately working with each individual just as they would at a stand-alone university. This is a college that just happens to be on prison grounds. Before they graduate, they must submit a senior project. The paper must be between 80-100 pages. It is the equivalent of a Master’s thesis. Here is a best option for part time 
College Behind Bars puts faces and voices to those benefiting from but genuinely fighting to improve their lives and thus, the world all we live in. We, the viewers, are forced to come to terms with the prison industrial complex, systemic racism, and our own moral compass. And the students are forced to come to terms with their pasts and their futures. College Behind Bars is both informative and eye-opening. It breathes life into the stories of a population oftentimes swept under the rug. You will cheer on the college students, no matter what your views on how they got their opportunity to learn and earn their degrees.
Zip. Zap. Zop. This is one of the most familiar improv games for theater nerds all over the country. In the first 20 minutes of Tim Robbins‘ new doc we watch a group of maximum security prisoners experience their very first acting class with The Actor’s Gang Prison Project. Ordinarily divided by race and gang affliction out in the yard, these men from all different backgrounds allow themselves to be free. They allow happiness, vulnerability, doubt, fear, and reflection into their normally regimented day and existence. The human connections and breakthroughs made in an acting class can change the very way you think and process information. It is an outlet that is unique and to see the effect it has on this particular group of people is profound. As the classes progress, they are challenged to emote, not just feign happy or sad, but truly feel anguish, rage, glee. To see men who are oftentimes not allowed to express themselves because of toxic masculinity and their specific surrounding, finally, feel safe enough to do so is truly breathtaking. Robbins and his teaching team, which includes an ex-prisoner, give us a masterclass in this documentary. 45 Seconds of Laughter (which is also how they end each class) is more than a film, it is a brilliant human experience. You will see transformations right in front of your eyes. Destroying boundaries through art, building friendships through mask play, and repairing relationships with loved ones by taking a chance on something completely outside of their comfort zone is nothing short of extraordinary. 45 Seconds of Laughter is a joyous film. Bravo to all.
Jonas inherited his deafness from his maternal grandmother and grandfather. We learn so much from watching him communicate with and without his cochlear implants. We learn by watching the interaction between him and his grandparents. Genetics determined that Jonas and his grandparents had a tiny “typo” in a specific gene causing them to be deaf. Music became another way to communicate and bridge the generational gap. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata was Jonas’ personal challenge he set for himself. His goal was to study for 7 months in order to perform it in a recital. The history of Beethoven’s own deafness weaved into this doc is stunning on every level. While rehearsing, Jonas’ music teacher explains the emotional impact of the piece not only to him but the audience. Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three Movements is an ode to sound and silence.
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