Tag: Movie

A complex chick deals with a vanilla beau, a shitty brunch, and a dead coyote all in a Los Angeles day. There’s batshit crazy and then there’s good crazy…she fits somewhere in between.

A Comedy Drama Short film “Good Crazy” picks of the weeks by Staff Pick Premiere on @vimeo.

Director: Rosa Salazar

Screenplay: Rosa Salazar

Music director: Kevin Blumenfeld

Producer: Tobias Louie

Cast: Rosa Salazar, Jacob Wysocki, Graham Mackie, Matt Chute, Turen Robinson

It’s a word that flies out of our mouths in zillion different ways: CRAZY. There’s restraining-order crazy, elaborate-prom-posals crazy, a-trillion-views-on-Facebook crazy, grandma-just-got-a-sleeve-tattoo crazy, etc. In today’s vernacular, it’s kind of the every word and it’s often used to describe women, as the residue of ancient gender stereotypes still prevails in modern culture. Men should be the risk-takers, while women idly stand by and take care of a man should he fail. When a woman steps outside of these boundaries, it’s easy (and lazy) to label her as one of the “crazy” ones. In the case of this week’s Staff Pick Premiere “Good Crazy,” the behavior that a boyfriend perceives as exhaustingly excessive is his girlfriend’s perceived duty as a law-abiding, public-space-respecting, animal-loving human.

While partaking in very normal weekend activities with her average (read: vanilla/nice but boring) partner, Rosa goes above and beyond to make any disconcerting circumstance better even if she may appear to be outdoing herself. Ultimately, this Sundance 2017 short is about considering the intentions of those who go out of their way to turn a negative into a positive, no matter the results. About the main character’s particular brand of crazy in “Good Crazy,” director, writer, and star Rosa Salazar explain: “It’s about being a person who has an interesting code if you will. You see, there’s CRAZY crazy someone who is completely irrational and lacks the awareness to be a functional member of society. And then there’s GOOD crazy a person who fights the everyday injustices, a social crusader, often misunderstood and thus intimidating to others due to a severe case of ‘wokeness.’ Because women are by nature intuitive creatures, we possess that ‘wokeness’ and are unfortunately susceptible to being lumped in with the crazy crazies.”

I’m sure you’ve been there before standing on one end of the crazy spectrum, while, oblivious to you, a witness to your behavior thinks you’ve taken a one-way ticket to crazy-town. If so, you may identify with the sweet, harmless motives of Rosa in “Good Crazy,” and the comical train wreck that ensues.

Teen Andrea uses a male stripper to gain the respect and admiration of cool girl Daphne. Hot Seat, which is based on a true story, explores coming-of-age sexuality and the complexities of relationships between teen girls.

Director: Anna Kerrigan

Writer: Anna Kerrigan

Stars: Jess Gabor, Carmela Zumbado, Byron Quiros

Screenplay: Anna Kerrigan

Producers: Ashley Springer, Kati Rediger, Anna Kerrigan

Ask anyone you know about their first sexual experience and you’re bound to get a broad range of answers that, in different measure, include some confusion, awkwardness, and hilarity. Throw in high school insecurities and teenage friendships, and you get the tried-and-true recipe for countless Hollywood films. These coming-of-age stories are so ubiquitous that we can usually spot them from a mile away. Most often, they are about a young boy and a defining sexual experience that suddenly jolts him into manhood. And, let’s be real, they are most likely directed by men.

Which brings us to Anna Kerrigan’s “Hot Seat,” a refreshing and authentic take on burgeoning sexuality and female friendships, as it unfolds at an unusual 18th birthday party. Andrea, a shy wallflower, shows up at the party with a handmade friendship bracelet for Daphne, the cool birthday girl whose approval she is desperate to get. But the innocent party Andrea thought she was attending quickly escalates when the hired male stripper, Jonny Ca$h, shows up, pumping adrenaline into the room and testing the fragile teen ecosystem. Excited to push the boundaries of this new experience, the girls insist that Jonny Ca$h work overtime. But when his offer for a one-on-one performance on is met with reticence, it’s Andrea who seizes the moment to prove her friendship and sits on the “hot seat” with a captive audience.

Played by Jess Gabor in a breakout performance, Andrea is transformed into the queen of the party when a shocking event turns into a hilarious bonding experience. By placing a platonic relationship at the center of a sex-filled room, Kerrigan (creator of Staff Picked series The Impossibilities) draws from her own experiences and subverts expectations, allowing Andrea to feel empowered rather than victimized. “When you’re a teenager,” says Kerrigan, “you look to your peers to tell you how to feel about a moment.” Navigating these insecurities and knowing how to feel can be tricky for anyone, male or female, and “you don’t realize until later that the peers you idolized had no idea what they were doing either.” Based on her own true story, Kerrigan says she wanted to “capture the specific feeling of joyful, teen girl camaraderie and also to convey that it wasn’t really about the stripper’s relationship with us, it was about the relationships between us girls. He was really just a pawn.”

Mutants is a Canadian short drama film, directed by Alexandre Dostie and released in 2016. The film stars Joseph DeLorey as Keven, a teenager who, after being injured at baseball practice, is sent on an unexpected emotional journey of discovery.

In the summer of 1996, life throws a curveball in the face of Keven Guénette; and it strikes. Guided by his paraplegic baseball coach, Keven discovers the mutation, sex, and love.

The film’s cast also includes Francis La Haye and Sandrine Bisson. This short film is picks of weeks on @vimeo Staff Pick Premieres.

Awards: At TIFF, the film won the award for Best Canadian Short Film. At the 5th Canadian Screen Awards in 2017, the film won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Live Action Short Drama, and at the 19th Prix Iris in 2017, the film won the award for Best Short Film. Canadian Screen Award for Best Live Action Short Drama.

Director: Alexandre Dostie

Screenplay: Alexandre Dostie

Cast: Sandrine Bisson, Francis La Haye, Tanya Quirion, Jérémy Labonté, Joseph Delorey

Producers: Hany Ouichou, Gabrielle Tougas- Fréchette

A graffiti artist in his early 20s begins a 3½ year prison sentence for vandalism. He must attempt to cope with the struggles of his new life on the inside: sharing a cell with an aggressive murderer, being moved to high security, living 23 hours a day alone. An unlikely allay soon teaches him how to survive. Questions then begin to arise. Who can he trust? Will he ever find solace?

Director: Billy Boyd Cape

Screenplay: Molly Manning Walker

Story by: Molly Manning Walker

Cast: James Clossick, Edward Hayter, Jamal Renaldo, Kiosa Sukami, Claire Strugess, Steve Pinto, Howard Lee

Producers: Matthew Hodgkin, Nicholas White

Festivals & Screenings:

Premiere at London’s BFI – 2015
Bournemouth Emerging Arts Festival – 2015
In Competition – Camerimage Film Festival 2015
Reely and Truly A/W – 2015
Official Selection – London Short Film Festival 2016
In Competition – Royal Television Society Southern 2016
In Competition – Short Waves Festival 2016
VUE & GRM Daily Presents Your Cinema – 2016
Official Selection – Int. Filmfest Emden-Norderney 2016
Official Selection – IndieFlicks International Film Fest 2016
Official Selection – Malta Festival Poznan 2017

On the same day that known graffiti writer Vamp was sentenced to 3 years for vandalism, a BBC presenter, Stuart Hall, was given 15 months for the sexual assault of 13 young girls over 20 years, between the ages of 9 and 17. The contrast here is worrying evidence that in the event of two guilty verdicts, the courts seem to place more value on the inconvenience of spray paint on an old brick wall than they do in the lives of underage assault victims.

Disturbed by a justice system that at times is not so just, Molly Manning Walker found inspiration to write a short film, More Hate Than Fear, as a follow-up to a documentary of the same name, that she had made on the same subject. Viewing graffiti as the ultimate freedom of expression, she felt moved to help preserve it but also highlight what was happening to its artists. She explains: “Graffiti is freedom of speech, it’s a statement of unhappiness with the status quo. But it’s not graffiti that drove me to make this film – it’s the disproportionate prison sentences.” Walker tells Dazed, “what has become apparent is that we have a judicial system that values money and property over human life.”

“What has become apparent is that we have a judicial system that values money and property over human life” – Molly Manning Walker 

And unfortunately, her fears are backed by facts –  graffiti writers are being sentenced to years in prison and placed in high-risk facilities alongside violent offenders.

Written by Molly Manning Walker and directed by Billy Boyd Cape, the film tails a young graffiti artist struggling to navigate prison at the beginning of his sentence. After an altercation with his aggressive cellmate, the young prisoner returns to sketching as an escape. As days pass, he starts to come to terms with his circumstances, makes a friend and even learns a few tricks. By the end of the film, everything he comes to know is called into question once again, as he tries to figure out who he can trust. It’s a hard-hitting glimpse into the dark reality kids are facing in high-security prisons, for crimes as small as graffiti in an underground tunnel.

“… by putting a writer in prison, you are not deterring them; you are inspiring them.” – Harry Conway

In a society where the likes of McDonald’s, Adidas and Nike decorate their spaces and marketing campaigns with graffiti, when reporters regularly adopt street art as backdrops for broadcast and the style embellishes designer clothes worldwide, it seems almost farcical to suggest that society might be scared of the prolific art form. Rather, the fear of graffiti is governmental and stems from a fear of loss of control, as Cummings suggests in Walker’s earlier documentary.

However, the role the public plays is a different one altogether and boils down to a lack of awareness, one of the reasons this film was so important to both Walker and also the director, Billy Boyd Cape. Cape states it plainly: “In the minds of the general public, there is this belief that once someone is found guilty and gets locked up, they probably deserved it. There is no sympathy … There desperately needs to be a change in public perspective.”

A blind trust is being put in structures that are routinely failing to prioritize citizens’ well-being over public property. And in doing so, the punishment for costing the government money in damages is costing the government even more in over-filled prisons as well as generating a vicious cycle of offending.

Harry Conway, a subject of the original More Hate Than Fear documentary, deconstructs precisely why the unjust sentencing of graffiti writers does more harm than good. “Yes, it’s a crime and should be punishable,” he says. “But by putting a writer in prison, you are not deterring them; you are inspiring them.”

Conway explains how prison sentences for graffiti artists –  placing them in close proximity to higher risk criminals –  actually introduces them to a wider ring of criminal activity and sets them up with the know-how and connections to, as he puts it “live this life of crime.” Instead, Conway suggests a simple and effective solution for the crime – community service – as “a solid way of repaying their debt that also doesn’t cost the taxpayer anywhere near as much as paying for a prisoner.”

Our current sociopolitical climate has meant that youth political engagement has risen rapidly in the face of a government that refuses to listen to our demands for change. Artistic expression has always been a way to reject the status quo, while graffiti art is one of the longest standing avenues for this. When the system considers damage to private property more harmful to society than violence against underage victims, we have to ask whose interest that could even be in.

Unjust sentencing of non-violent offenders can only be seen as a gesture of performance to try and silence a generation that is disenfranchised but self-empowered. And the manner in which graffiti writers are being scapegoated is stubbornness to the detriment of our prison system, society as a whole and the lives of young artists. Branding them as severe criminals and treating them as such will, at best destroy any chance of rehabilitation, and at worst become a self-fulfilling prophecy – raising the question of who exactly has the right to disrespect and reduce another person’s freedom to just a threatening message for others.

Shot using a single camera, 90 people meticulously recreate a failed bank robbery that took place in Stockholm in June 2006. This short is #Funny or #Comedy Short Films.

‘Incident by a Bank’ it is one of week Staff Pick Premiere! on @Vimeo

Written & Directed by Ruben Östlund

Given Sweden’s reputation as a beacon of social democratic values, it’s somewhat ironic that the real-life robbery portrayed in today’s Staff Pick Premiere took place in Stockholm. Adding to this same sense of irony is the fact that director Ruben Östlund was en route to the Swedish Film Institute to secure public funds for his feature film Involuntary when he and producer Erik Hemmendorff witnessed the attempted robbery. Strolling past a jewelry store in the Scandinavian capital, Hemmendorff turned to Östlund and gestured toward two men sitting on an idling moped. “Do they have ski masks on them?” he asked. The events that subsequently unfolded served as the basis for “Incident by a Bank.” “It was a very absurd and surreal experience,” Östlund reminisces. The short went on to win the Golden Bear at Berlinale in 2010 and is now streaming worldwide for the first time ever, exclusively on Vimeo.

Shot in 2009, years before the current proliferation of single-take films, Östlund took advantage of newly-released 5K technology to shoot a stationary master shot within which all of the action transpires. He then employed digital zooms and pans to follow the action as it played out, giving the resulting film the impression of a single take. “I digitally zoomed up to 400% in the picture, but I think it works quite well [despite] the loss of quality,” says Östlund. He is quick to point out, however, that there are four hidden cuts within the film. “We did only 14 takes, which is not much for me. I usually do around 40 takes when I shoot. But I felt I had it when I was walking home [from the set] that night.”

More than its unique production process, the film’s true strength is its ability to subvert the popular narrative surrounding heists as they are commonly dramatized in cinema. Östlund eschews the carefully coordinated team of professionals (a la Ocean’s Eleven) for a motley pair of petty thieves who can hardly pilot a scooter. In lieu of heroic bystanders who rise to the occasion to overpower their aggressors, we see oblivious teenagers and morbidly fascinated gawkers who cannot be bothered to call the police. “I wanted the film to stay true to my experience,” asserts Östlund. “I was a complete cowardly bystander and that’s really the most interesting part to me.”

The inevitable gulf between our reaction to real-life emergencies and their implausible cinematic representations is a central theme in Östlund’s work. His 2014 black comedy, Force Majeure, explores the implications of a father’s fleeting moment of cowardice when his family is threatened by an avalanche. It was in part inspired by a YouTube video of an avalanche bearing down on mesmerized, smartphone-wielding bystanders, which was conspicuously devoid of the drama and heroism that would have likely characterized any Hollywood portrayal of the same event. In “Incident by a Bank,” the same dynamic applies: a life-threatening situation emerges and nobody springs to action.

“Incident by a Bank” is a unique instance of life imitating art (the real robbery), only to be later imitated by art (the film itself). However, the line between fact and fiction only got blurrier after the film was released, according to an anecdote from Östlund: “During the shoot, I had a couple of extras film the robbers with their cell phones. That material was used as a promo for the film. Half a year later, I get a link from a friend who watched an American TV show called ‘The Top Ten Dumbest Criminals in the World.’ In seventh place, they used the clip from the shoot, claiming it was authentic material.” Should we really be that surprised?

Ivan has an obsession for kneading the dough.

‘Ivan’s Need’ of the week’s Staff Pick Premiere! on @Vimeo

Lukas Suter: lukassuter.com/

Soundtrack by Tim & Puma Mimi

Produced by Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts

animation.hslu.ch/

It is the inspiration for countless paintings, songs, statues, and dances; the powerful vessel from which all of the mankind emerged; and the irresistible form that brings admirers to their knees. “The nakedness of a woman is the work of God,” said poet William Blake, not thinking that perhaps the creator of such a work of art is probably a really talented woman.

At least that is the case in today’s Staff Pick Premiere, “Ivan’s Need.” Breadmaker Ivan has one god — the doughy, soft, malleable combination of bread, eggs, and flour that he mixes every day. That all changes when he is summoned with a Rapunzel-esque flourish to the bedroom of a customer named Alva. The little man’s livelihood is kneading dough into loaves of bread, but Ivan discovers a whole new world — the female form — in this charming love letter to animal sexuality and the curves of a woman’s body.

With subtle references to the lady parts Ivan encounters during his journey (according to the filmmakers, they picked the name Ivan because it shares letters with “vagina” and the object of his desire, Alva, sounds like “vulva”), this charming piece is a silly, albeit honest, portrayal of bodies of all shapes, sizes, and colors. And, more importantly, the pleasure of all sexual partners. According to filmmakers Veronica Montano, Manuela Leuenberger, and Lukas Suter:

“It was important to us to find another way to depict sexuality. [Alva is] not the typical sex symbol, her breasts aren’t bouncy and balloony, they give in when Ivan touches them. Although she is exactly what the male character is interested in (as we know it from many erotic films), she also has confidence and her own sexual desires which she isn’t afraid to indulge. We not only show what it feels like for him to touch her, but also what it feels like for her to be touched.”

Animations frankly addressing female sexuality have been popping up like (welcome) weeds in the short film world in the past couple of years: Lori Malepart-Traversy’s “Le Clitoris,” Renata Gasiorowska’s “Pussy,” and Anna Ginsburg’s “Private Parts,” to name a few. It’s clear that animation has the power to pull people into uncomfortable subjects. In “Ivan’s Need,” that’s apparent in the bright, playful, and fun portrayal of a woman’s forward invitation for sex and her subsequent pleasure. It’s relatable, yet far enough away from the reality that it resembles Saturday morning cartoons. Maybe cute drawings of clitorises and pillowy breasts are just what we need to make these topics easier to talk about in real life.

And expanding our minds is exactly what the filmmakers of “Ivan’s Need” is aiming for. When asked what they’d like viewers to take away from the film they said, “That we should allow ourselves to be dreamy, naive, and childish. That it’s important to keep an innocent curiosity for sexuality. And don’t forget to love.”