I am a sucker for indie films, especially shorts. Of course, that’s if they aren’t weird. When the Indie Film Fest came to DC I called Summer Nanny and told Real Estate Dad we were going. He was sort of…how should I put this, meh about it. I figured he’d rally. He kind of did…in a way.
On Friday night we saw 3 feature length films. The first was Palacios. Sort of an interesting theme. An alcoholic woman lives in this odd rooftop apartment which is pretty much enclosed by almost all windows. It was like the landing at the top level of a flight of stairs in a building, just large enough to have a kitchen, living room and sleeping area. This guy shows up on the roof and they become friends and spend the day together, but the guy runs off after she finds out that there was a hold up at the gas station across the street from her place and it was likely him who shot someone. She ends up going to find him only to have him come back and she calls the police on him.
There are two interesting twists regarding this movie. First, it was filmed in St. Louis just a couple miles from where the shooting of Michael Brown occurred. Second, the actor who played the store robber, Olajuwon Davis, was actually arrested and put in federal prison for terrorist plots.
Next was Captain Black. For some reason I wasn’t as excited by this one based on the vague description of it on the Indie Film site. I even thought we may bail to get dinner since it was the 7 p.m. show. So glad we stayed though because the movie was much much better. The acting was excellent, movie had humor and drama, it was an all around win. The cast was there and it was funny to hear them talk about the movie, it certainly didn’t sound really high-tech or high-budget, and they did a fantastic job. Makes me think I can amp up this whole video thing I’m working on for the business.
Last one Friday was Loneliness of a Sewer Trucker. We watched the whole movie, were slightly confused, and rated it as average on the voting card. Then we trotted off to eat at Rosa Mexicano. Score! All the things you do when you have a sitter. Well, not ALL the things.
Anyway, sitting at a midnight dinner, we started talking about the last movie and as we kept talking and it unfolded in our brains of what we really watched, I wanted to go back to change my voting card to say it was excellent. I want to watch it again now, knowing what I’ve figured out about the characters. Not sure how one does that with Indie Flicks. Argh!
We headed back on Saturday for one feature length and a bunch of shorts. The feature length was Closure, about a woman who goes to L.A. looking for her estranged sister. It epitomized for me why L.A. looks good from D.C. but whenever I go there I’m itching to get back to the east coast. The cast and crew were there for the after-chat It was fascinating to learn how they like to do their own projects between other work they are hired for, but that the whole show business industry is really about keeping busy. They speak about their past work as though they were love affairs, having these different feelings about each piece on which they’ve worked. It made me like my life so much more for some reason.
The shorts were all entertaining but didn’t have a lot of impact for me. A couple left us in that shrug like “Eh, could have lived without this one.” I’ve written super short stories and they can be amazing but so much has to be packed into a short time frame for the impact I like. Though, we were sitting in front of someone with Tourette’s Syndrome and it made the dull clips much more tolerable. It was sort of like watching it through his brain.
DC you getting so cool with your Indie Film Fests.
