American Indie IV
August: American Indie IV, FLMTQ Releases 253-257
Filmatique partnered with Brooklyn-based film distributor Factory 25 once more for American Indie IV, a spotlight on some of the most exciting filmmakers working in the American independent scene. These films are no longer available to stream on Filmatique, but please check out Factory 25 for viewing options!
Albert Birney and Kentucker Audley Sylvio tells a disarmingly affecting tale of staying true to oneself, as a gorilla in Baltimore becomes a small-screen celebrity, while Nathan Silver's The Great Pretender oscillates between characters mired in a bizarre love-triangle amid New York's theater scene. Whitney Horn and Lev Kalman offbeat Western Two Plains & A Fancy follows three New York tourists on their pursuit for a Colorado hot spring—Tyler Taormina's Ham on Rye offers a tactile portrait of teen disenchantment. Alexandre Rockwell's In the Soup, a scrappy New York comedy about the daunting prospect of getting a film made, rounds out the series in a Special Screening,
Adventure, self-delusion, acceptance, and the mercurial nature of creation govern films with vastly different aesthetic profiles, from established filmmakers and newcomers alike. The fourth edition of Filmatique's American Indie Series examines the uniquely American enterprise of mythmaking, and its influence on culture both individual and collective.
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Sylvio, Albert Birney & Kentucker Audley (2017)
Sylvio, Albert Birney & Kentucker Audley / USA, 2017
Sylvio Bernardi, a gorilla, lives in Baltimore. He is unsatisfied with his 9-5 job at a debt collection agency, eager to escape his cubicle each day so he can unwind by playing basketball or acting out puppet shows. But Sylvio's life soon takes a strange twist—one day he is sent to collect a debt from Alan Reynolds, an amateur television talk showhost, who mistakes him for one of his guests. After his appearance goes viral, Sylvio must learn to wrestle with a newfound fame that is predicated on the very persona he has always sought to avoid.
Threaded with wry, affecting humor, Sylvio achieves universal resonances as its title character seeks to navigate the loneliness of his prior existence with the enticing prospect of acceptance for being someone other than he is. Albert Birney and Kentucker Audley's Kickstarter-funded film premiered at SXSW - South by Southwest and Boston Independent Film Festival.
The Great Pretender, Nathan Silver (2018)
The Great Pretender, Nathan Silver / USA, 2018
Mona, a French theater director, has written a play about her relationship with her ex-boyfriend, Nick. She casts Chris in the role, and Thérèse to play the fictional version of herself. Soon, though, a strange love triangle has developed—Mona is casually sleeping with Chris, who has become infatuated with Mona, much to the chagrin of Thérèse, who soon begins seeking out real-life Nick to make herself more like Mona.
Cycling through the perspectives of each character to refract the same event through different lenses, thus revealing the multitudinous layers of meaning and myth-making at play, The Great Pretender weaves a fascinating web of blurred reality and self-delusion. From the director of Exit Elena, Nathan Silver's latest film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, Mar del Plata, AFI Fest, and Gijón
Two Plains & A Fancy, Whitney Horn & Lev Kalman (2018)
Two Plains & A Fancy, Whitney Horn & Lev Kalman / USA, 2018
In September of 1893, three tourists arrive at the foot of the Rockies from New York City. Alta Mariah Sophronia does little to conceal her past as a con artist; Ozanne Le Perrier is a French geologist. Their male companion, Milton Tingling, dabbles in watercolors, and boasts an exquisite collection of silk scarves. Unbeknownst to them, they've arrived in the wake of the Denver Panic, in which the Colorado silver-mining bubble burst, leaving whole towns desolate and deserted. Ambling through the desert in search of an elusive hot spring, this curious threesome encounters a cast of characters even stranger and more eccentric than themselves.
Surreal, studied, and pastorally sublime in equal measure, Two Plains & A Fancy offers an anachronistic portrait of the American frontier. Whitney Horn and Lev Kalman's second collaboration premiered at BFI London, Mill Valley, and BAMcinemafest.
Ham on Rye, Tyler Taormina (2019)
Ham on Rye, Tyler Taormina / USA, 2019
Haley belongs to the popular crowd in high school, an attractive girl with attractive friends. She and her girlfriends listlessly don gauzy gowns and proceed on foot to Monty's, a local deli in their dull suburban town, for a bizarre rite of passage—a dance resembling a prom, wherein couples pair off and disappear into the night. Some make conversation, the others just gaze at the rundown strip malls. All hope to escape this desolate milieu, but only some, it turns out, will.
Airless, meandering, and atmospheric, Ham on Rye is a nearly unplaceable portrait of teenage alienation. Tyler Taormina's debut feature premiered at the Locarno International Film Festival, Santa Barbara, Sarasota, and Maryland.
In the Soup, Alexandre Rockwell (1992)