STOCKADE

Eric McGinty‘s STOCKADE follows Ahlam, a Lebanese woman trying to get her artist’s visa extended in NYC. To pay her lawyer, she agrees to deliver a package upstate. 

Halfway through the story goes in an entirely bizarre direction when Richard doesn’t show up, Paul isn’t answering the phone, and two strangers appear in the house demanding the contents of the package.  Suddenly, easy money is not so easy after all.

The tonal shift into antiquities thriller/wild goose chase is a bit jarring, but you root so hard for Ahlam that you go along for the ride. It definitely feels like everyone in Stockade knows more than they’re willing to divulge, and Ahlam is a manipulated chess piece in a game she never agreed to play.

The script features characters with racial microaggressions. The film didn’t actually need the thriller aspect at all. Ahlam’s immigrant artist story is enough to keep an audience engaged in earnest, although the commentary on the abuse of immigrant bodies is undoubtedly impactful. 

While the rest of the cast is mediocre at best,  Sarah Bitar is spectacular. She has a commanding presence about her. Ahlam holds unspoken trauma and guilt from leaving her family in Beruit. Bitar holds you captive with her fierce energy. She is the reason to watch this film.

Trailer:

Award-Winning Mystery-Drama STOCKADE Sets Limited Theatrical Release on February 21, 2025 and North American VOD Platforms and DVD on February 25, 2024 Via Freestyle Digital Media

The award-winning mystery-drama STOCKADE will have a limited theatrical release in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Glendale theater starting February 21, 2025, and will also be available on all North American digital HD internet, cable and satellite platforms, as well as on DVD, on February 25, 2025 via Freestyle Digital Media. In this psychological “immigrant noir” thriller, a Lebanese artist (played by Sarah Bitar) in New York takes a job delivering a package upstate, only to get embroiled in a murky scheme. STOCKADE is written and directed by Eric McGinty.

STOCKADE had its World Premiere at the 2023 Woodstock Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Ultra Indie Award. The film was also an Official Selection of the 2024 Queens World Film Festival at the Museum of the Moving Image where it won awards for Best Narrative Feature and Best Female Actor, and was also nominated for Best Director Narrative Feature, Best Ensemble Feature and Best Narrative Feature Screenplay.

STOCKADE tells the story of Ahlam, a struggling Lebanese artist in New York City who takes a job delivering a package upstate, only to open a Pandora’s box. In this updated meditation on the pursuit of the American dream, Ahlam finds herself in dire financial straits and desperate to come by the funds to extend her artist’s visa. When she is offered a job to deliver a mysterious package upstate, Ahlam believes she has found a solution. Upon her arrival in the Hudson Valley, Ahlam encounters shady characters and quirky neighbors as she is unwittingly drawn into the world of ancient artifact trafficking. Every step of the way, STOCKADE keeps viewers guessing, and with its naturalistic yet expressionistic aesthetic, this noir thriller makes a unique addition to the crime genre.

Written and directed by Eric McGinty, STOCKADE was produced by Anna Sang Park, Eric McGinty and Adam Vazquez. The cast features Sarah Bitar (‘Ahlam’), Bahar Beihaghi (‘Zora’) and Guy de Lancey (‘Paul’).

“STOCKADE was inspired by my experience as an artist who’s tracked the fine art world in New York City for many years, as well as my research on Middle-Eastern artifacts and the illegal antiquities trade,” said writer/director Eric McGinty. “But above all else, I was determined to make an ‘immigrant film noir,’ where characters and situations that are underrepresented in most mainstream films are instead at the center of the story.”

McGinty first met trilingual (English, Arabic and French) film and stage actor Sarah Bitar, when she was attending drama school in New York City. Bitar’s actual struggles inspired the creation of Ahlam, a Lebanese painter just out of art school; an antihero who gets caught up in the hyper-capitalistic, colonialistic world of fine art. The intersectionality of Bitar’s real-life – as an immigrant to America and a queer person from a region in the world where the LGBTQ+ community is often not accepted by significant swaths of society – was deeply influential as McGinty crafted the character. “It was also imperative for me to collaborate with Lebanese cast and crew members, including our editor, composer and several actors. Other performers are from the Middle-Eastern diaspora, South Africa, Korea and Argentina,” he added.

About STOCKADE writer/director Eric McGinty:

McGinty’s first feature, Wallabout, won the Best Narrative Feature Award at the 2015 Bushwick Film Festival and the Best Personal Narrative Award at the 2014 Manhattan Film Festival. In 2016, Wallabout had a theatrical release for a month at the venerable Paris art house, Cinéma Saint-André des Arts, where the esteemed film magazine, Positif, gave it 4 stars. As a first assistant director, Eric often collaborated with French directors who were shooting films in the US, including Cédric Klapisch, Luc Besson, Olivier Nakache/Eric Toledano and Rachid Bouchareb. Based in Brooklyn, Eric grew up in a bicultural environment, having been raised in Paris and Washington, D.C. by a French mother and an American father. He began his career in Paris working as an actor and stage manager in theater and modern dance. He attended the Sorbonne and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, concentrating his studies in film and literature. In STOCKADE, Eric also plays the role of Richard.

CREDITS:

Written and Directed by Eric McGinty

Produced by Anna Sang Park, Adam Vazquez, Eric McGinty

Executive Producers: Anna Sang Park, Lela Meadow-Conner

Director of Photography: Guy de Lancey

Editor: Nay Tabbara

Music by Alex Wakim

Sound: Samuel O’Sullivan

Art Director: David Raff

 

TRT 88 minutes | Color | English, Arabic, French

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