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Indy Film Fest 2025: The Amateur Circus, Finger Laced Crown, & Midwinter

April 25, 2025 Ben Sears Leave a comment

Every small town has its quirks, and The Amateur Circus is an exercise in showing the civic pride that one small town has in its long-standing tradition. That is, the titular circus, run exclusively by amateurs every year in Peru, Indiana. There’s nothing particularly special about the circus – there’s no death-defying stunts or animals or stage acts that couldn’t be seen in a professional circus all across the country. But first-time feature director Erik Thein goes out of his way to show just how dedicated the citizens of Peru are in putting out the best show possible.

From single digit-aged kids to grown adults, there’s an enthusiasm felt for the town circus, and we frequently hear, through Thein’s interviews, that families often pass down that enthusiasm from generation to generation. The Amateur Circus is a film of two halves: first, it depicts the town’s parade in anticipation of the opening night, and second, it shows the opening of the circus. Perhaps the film would be better served if it had touched on life in Peru outside of the circus, showing how dependent the town is on its financial windfall. Based on the film, you might walk away thinking anyone and everyone within Peru dedicated their entirely livelihoods to putting the show together. But at only 65 minutes, the film aims for positivity first and foremost, and if it enlightens even one person to what a dedicated group of individuals can do together, The Amateur Circus is a success.

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There’s an inherent messiness at the heart of Finger Laced Crown; some intentional by its writer-director Brandon C. Lay, and some unintentional. What is intentionally messy is the love life of our protagonist Lemon Drop (Torez Mosley), a proudly bisexual spray paint artist who has trouble staying committed to one romantic partner. Some of this is tied up in trauma from a recent ex, Nadine (Syd Stauffer), a married woman who didn’t reciprocate Lemon Drop’s feelings. It probably doesn’t help that Lemon Drop’s mother is an alcoholic who has to rely on her daughter to take care of her financially and physically.

Where the film gets unintentionally messy is in its overall structure and lack of thematic elements. A bizarre portion of the first act relies on Lemon Drop (yes, that’s her government name) explaining what an NFT is, and how she relies on them to sell her art. Never mind the fact that her spray paintings, mostly pseudo-abstract neon sunsets and moonscapes, look like something you’d see likely see on Pinterest or Etsy, not a high-end art gallery. If there is a connection to be made between Lemon Drop’s life as an artist and her love life, Finger Laced Crown struggles to make it. Mosley’s performance is admirable, especially in the flashback scenes showing how her tryst with Nadine began, but the film dries out when its occasionally meandering plot develops. There’s an interesting story to be found with these characters, but it’s currently more like a rough sketch than a finished masterwork.

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Midwinter presents a decidedly adult story of love and betrayal by inter-weaving characters with a shared past. Writer-director Ryan Andrew Balas focuses on parallel storylines between Nadine and Jack, a husband and wife (played by Marlowe Holden and Chadwick Sutton), and Mia (Julia D’Angelo), a musician, and Lena (Charlie Traisman), a songwriter hired to help Mia with her next hit. Relationships get more complex and complicated, and loyalties begin to blur – especially when Nadine gets sick and can no longer keep up with their young son.

Here is an independent film unafraid to discuss open relationships/polyamory, and queer love, without resorting to easy stereotypes or quick understandings of characters. Though the film sometimes leans a little too heavily into its indie trappings, including a mushroom trip between Mia and Lena, there are solid performances all around and Balas directs the film with visual flair. Midwinter offers a number of thoughtful conversations about heartbreak, love, and hope, and how those seemingly opposed ideas can often intersect, and it’s one of the best films of Indy Film Fest.

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Film Festivals, Uncategorized

Heartland Film Festival 2024: If That Mockingbird Don’t Sing, All American, and 2:15 PM

October 18, 2024 Ben Sears Leave a comment

Perhaps what’s most impressive about If That Mockingbird Don’t Sing is that its writer-director just recently turned 20 years old. Sophie Bones – who makes a small cameo appearance as well – riffs on Juno and teenage pregnancy with the right balance of laughs and heart, even when its characters are often painted with a broad brush. The story follows Sydnie (played with an impressive maturity by Aitana Doyle), who discovers she’s pregnant after breaking up with her dipshit college-bound boyfriend Lucas (Braxton Fannin).

There are abrupt character shifts, like the almost forced love triangle that develops about halfway through, or Lucas’s changing feelings on being a father or his immediate reaction to the gender of the baby. But Bones peppers in some truly thoughtful and genuine scenes that elevate If That Mockingbird Don’t Sing above your run of the mill regional film festival indie. A scene between Sydnie and Lucas’s mother Carrie (Catherine Curtin) subverts expectations by painting the two as allies, rather than showing Carrie as the agitator. Scenes like this go a long way in differentiating the film from your average romantic comedy with overly qualified stars in supporting roles. The whole endeavor isn’t perfect, but it’s got enough positives to show that Bones has the chops to be a young, original voice in indie storytelling.

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All American is one of the more conventional documentaries to be found at Heartland, but it’s no less emotional. First-time director Mark Andrew Altschul chronicles the girls wrestling movement in high school sports, but his film smartly details the complicated personal lives of its subjects off the mat just as much as it does on. The film isn’t explicitly about the immigrant experience, but the trio of girls just happen to be first-generation Americans living in various areas of New York.

Altschul shows the girls’ struggles not only to excel in the sport, but to gain the acceptance of their family, friends, and the culture at large. The film’s most heartbreaking storyline comes from a girl whose family immigrated from Yemen, and who go so far as to kick her out of the home simply for wanting to play a sport traditionally dominated by men. This is in line with the other characters, whose families come from more traditional backgrounds and believe that a girl’s place is in the home. But it’s encouraging to see so many girls persevere through adversity and acceptance, and it ultimately makes All American a winner.

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There’s nothing inherently disagreeable about 2:15 PM, a Korean melodrama from first-time director Seryong Jeong, with a script from Ok-nyeon Park. At times, the film reminded me of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Monster, which also played at Heartland and was one of my favorite films of last year. But what the former lacks is the latter’s ability to dig beneath the surface to offer a message that resonates after the credits end.

Jeong’s film concerns two young girls, played by Park So-yi and Gi So-you, and their budding friendship in the face of adverse circumstances. Hyun-su (Park So-yi) finds Min-ha (Gi So-you) on her way home from school when her father breaks a window in a fit of anger. Seeing someone in need of a friend, she begins a daily ritual of coming to Min-ha’s home and spending their brief window of time together. Jeong does a nice job of inserting drama naturally, like in exploring Min-ha’s father’s abusive behavior, or in Hyun-su’s impending move to Canada. That he manages to achieve all of this within 75 minutes is all the more impressive, but I can’t help but wish there was more to latch onto at the end of the day.

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Film Festivals, Uncategorized

Heartland Film Festival 2024: La Cocina, Stripper Boyz, and Emergent City

October 17, 2024 Ben Sears Leave a comment

Alonso Ruizpalacios channels Alfonso Cuaron and The Bear with La Cocina, an exquisitely crafted but occasionally stilted drama. The film introduces its conflict early on, setting the stage for a great deal of tension, but it abruptly changes gears in its second half to become a bizarrely ineffective story of immigration. Set over the course of a single day in a generic New York restaurant simply called “The Grill”, the film follows the grunts at the front and back of house as management investigates a large chunk of money that was allegedly stolen the previous night.

All of this serves as the backdrop for the drama between Julia (Rooney Mara), a waitress, and Pedro (Raul Briones), a line cook. She recently discovered she’s pregnant, and he wants to support her decision to get an abortion. Mara and Briones are naturally charismatic together and separately, but the film goes on extended tangents that work perfectly well on paper but grind everything to a halt. One scene shows the kitchen going on a back-and-forth of colorfully insulting each other in their native tongues and, though this is probably La Cocina’s most effective instance of the film’s vision, there are similar scenes that don’t work as well. Still, Ruizpalacios gets the details of life in a busy restaurant right more often than not, like in Luis (Eduardo Olmos), the management underling who appeals to the immigrants by appearing friendly, but secretly has the boss’s best interests at heart. And the film looks incredible, shot in black and white in the Academy aspect ratio. Ruizpalacios especially flexes his muscles behind the camera with a virtuoso minutes-long oner during the chaotic lunch rush, where the lines between reality and fantasy blur. There’s a leaner version of La Cocina that’s undoubtedly much more effective, but it’s hard not to be frustrated by the film as it stands.

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No other film at Heartland this year has a logline as hilarious as Stripper Boyz. Serving as a kind of documentary-narrative hybrid, the film tackles male body positivity in an ingeniously inventive way, thanks to the chemistry and instincts of its stars. Stephen Sanow and Jozef Fahey – Stephen is the credited director, and both are credited writers – are long-time friends and struggling actors, and Jozef is engaged, so Stephen decides to throw Jozef a bachelor party. But rather than your typical night of debauchery with friends, the pair travel to Las Vegas, where they try to learn the ropes as male strippers.

The film has a lot of fun with blurring the lines of reality and fiction, as we’re often left wondering how much of what we’re seeing is a bit, versus what is genuine. Stephen’s excuse for embarking on the journey is so that he can give his friend more confidence in himself and in his impending marriage, and Jozef is fully game with what is admittedly a kind of insane idea. If the majority of the conflict within Stripper Boyz was in Jozef’s unwillingness to do what Stephen wants, the film wouldn’t resonate as long as it does. Rather, the conflict comes from outside forces and setbacks beyond their control. Thankfully, the duo have enough comedic chops to make enough worthwhile content without stretching the premise beyond its breaking point.

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Gentrification is a word we all know and understand, but Emergent City takes an in-depth look at how and why it happens, in one of the biggest hotbeds for the trend. Documentarians Jay Arthur Sterrenberg and Kelly Anderson dedicate almost 10 years to filming the changes to the neighborhood of Sunset Park, a multi-cultural melting pot near the waterfront of Brooklyn. When the industrial warehouses and factories that flourished in the 1950s were left mostly empty and abandoned, the city tried to invigorate the area by turning the buildings into multi-use facilities called Industrial City, leading to upscale restaurants and businesses like what we see in most downtown areas throughout the country.

Sterrenberg and Anderson take an on-the-ground approach to the film, showing various organizations and town hall meetings, as the community pushes back against further re-zoning and redevelopment. It’s hard not to be won over to the community’s side, but Sterrenberg and Anderson are careful enough to occasionally show the potential upside to more development – like additional jobs and revitalizations to areas that were essentially blights beforehand. It can often feel like an uphill battle whenever community members – especially predominantly non-white community members – fight against a multi-billion dollar company, but Emergent City is an engrossing look at democracy in action, full of colorful personalities worth rooting for.

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Film Festivals, Uncategorized

Heartland Film Festival 2024: Secret Mall Apartment, An Autumn Summer, & Love, Danielle

October 16, 2024 Ben Sears 1 Comment

For four years beginning in 2003, a group of eight artists, art students, and friends ventured to create their own space in the bowels of the Providence Place Mall. Jeremy Workman’s documentary Secret Mall Apartment seeks to tell the nearly unbelievable true story of the apartment, but it quickly morphs into a portrait of how art and creativity can shape a group of people. Michael Townsend, an artist and teacher at RISD, spearheaded the project after discovering a small, undeveloped area within the mall, and he quickly makes it a kind of clubhouse for his friends to share ideas, and also play PlayStation.

It’s amusing how quickly the gang adapts to making the “apartment” their own hidden space. They subsist on food from the food court and popcorn from the movie theater. At one point, they raise the idea of getting a PO Box within the mall, so they can receive mail and make it an official address. But the heart of Secret Mall Apartment is a look at Michael’s belief that art can be anything you make, whether it’s murals of masking tape in a children’s hospital or an ad-hoc apartment with stolen electricity. Michael is an easily likable figure, even when his obsession with the apartment essentially ruins his marriage, so when the inevitable happens and the apartment is discovered, you’re still rooting for him. There isn’t much thematic weight to the film overall, but it’s a good time peppered with humor and insight about the arts, so it ultimately feels like a worthwhile endeavor.

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The last gasp of summer is rendered with care and vitality in Jared Isaacs’ An Autumn Summer, a freewheeling look at a group of friends’ gradual realization that things may never be the same, for better and worse. But Isaacs, who writes and directs, rarely injects drama where it doesn’t belong, instead choosing to let his young actors see where the scene takes them. It feels as if they were given mostly free reign to improvise, and it makes this summer getaway in the northern Michigan lakeside feel like a natural extension of their lives and rituals, rather than a film with a predetermined beginning, middle, and end. Though the plot is less important here, it’s centered on Kevin (Mark McKenna) and Cody’s (Lukita Maxwell) romance, as college looms and they fear they could lose everything they have.

Isaacs’ dialogue occasionally feels a little writerly, and perhaps he could have cut the film down from its 98 minute runtime. This is a film where conversations span the gamut from college parties to the Big Bang to dreams of marriage and children, all with abundant theater kid energy. Maxwell and McKenna are the standouts and emotional anchors of the film, but Louise Barnes, Katie Baker, Tony Horton, Julian Bass, and Jun Yu make each of their characters feel distinct, and less like different mouthpieces for Isaacs to use. An Autumn Summer may be Jared Isaacs’ directorial debut, but it’s a supremely confident film that belongs at the top of your Heartland watchlist.

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At only 78 minutes, Love, Danielle gets a number of sentiments right about life with cancer, but could stand to expand a bit more on its themes. In the opening minutes of the film, we learn that Danielle (Devin Sidell) has been diagnosed with a BRCA1 genetic mutation, which puts her at higher risk for ovarian and breast cancer. She then has to choose whether she wants to have preventive surgery to remove her breasts and ovaries, in spite of her desire to have children. Given that the film follows Sidell’s real-life experience with BRCA, and her co-screenwriter credit along with Steve Sears, the film feels like an accurate, genuine depiction of those who go through this very unique phenomenon. But as if BRCA wasn’t enough, Danielle’s sister Amy (Jaime King) is going through her own cancer journey, and she has to deal with lingering familial trauma from her absentee father (Barry Bostwick) and her uber-picky mother (Lesley Ann Warren).

First-time director Marianna Palka mostly avoids the quirkiness that comes with the cancer dramedy, instead exploring Danielle’s relationships with her family and loved ones. Sidell is disarmingly vulnerable in her performance, never shying away from the uglier sides of having cancer, and the specific guilt of having a treatable form when someone you love is suffering. More often than not, a film is better served when it doesn’t belabor a plot point or character beat, but here is a case where the film would have benefitted from more room to breathe. Still, Love, Danielle gets the emotions right in a genre where shortcuts are too frequently taken.

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Film Festivals, Uncategorized

Heartland Film Festival 2024: The Worlds Divide, Saturn, and ReEntry

October 14, 2024 Ben Sears Leave a comment

The Worlds Divide opens with a title card declaring that the film was entirely drawn and animated by one person, writer-director Denver Jackson. Though it’s almost fully unnecessary, it can be seen as both an excuse for any shortcomings, and a humble-brag for what’s to come. Though the animation is undoubtedly impressive in its intricacies, it still needs some refinement that could have come from at least a second set of eyes. The issues which plagued Jackson’s previous film The Crown of Babylon (which played at Heartland in 2021), mostly the inaccurate lip syncing, continue here, but Jackson still retains his knack for original sci-fi storytelling.

The film concerns Natomi (voiced by Breanna Pearl), who lives in a dystopian dictatorship where no plants or vegetables have grown for ages. She’s transported by her father to a distant world called Esluna, where he’s seen as a kind of god, and various forces try to destroy her. She learns she has unique powers and teams up with a ragtag crew – including a robotic teddy bear – to return her home. Jackson wears his influences on his sleeves, from Star Wars to The Matrix and the films of Studio Ghibli. This, along with an almost punishingly convoluted plot and a nearly 2-hour runtime, makes the film harder to sit through than it should be, but there’s no denying Jackson can craft engaging action set pieces. It’s a miracle for any independent animated film to see the light of day, so it’s even more miraculous for one made from a single person. But that won’t stop me from wishing The Worlds Divide was a more engaging film.

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Sometimes an original sci-fi property doesn’t need a crazy, high-concept premise to succeed. Saturn starts with a simple enough hook: a planet suddenly appears in the sky. But director Eric Esau’s film uses this sci-fi backdrop more as a way to explore more dramatic tensions brought to the surface by the unexpected development. The film mostly becomes a weepy familial drama between a man named James (Dominic Bogart), his wife Sarah (Piercey Dalton), and their son George (Elijah Maximus), in the imminent days before the end of the world. Without delving into spoilers, Saturn looks at what it means to be a hero, and the cost of self-sacrifice. We rarely see the planet, so we’re left with its implications, and what regular people would do in the face of unprecedented circumstances.

Esau’s script, which he co-writes with Anna Esau and Douglas Haines, leans into ancient mythology, as we learn that James is a “shepherd”, an ancient being responsible for protecting Earth. So, with the arrival of the planet, he has to choose between saving humanity, or abandoning Earth and escaping with his family to another planet. Even a passing glance at a regional film festival will reveal that low-budget sci-fi can easily lead to embarrassing disaster, so Saturn immediately gains points for not stepping on rakes at every turn. The film looks great, even when it’s as dimly lit as the later seasons of Game of Thrones. Though the meat of the film could stand to be more compelling, it’s hard not to recommend an original idea made with care like this.

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You’d think a production featuring the likes of Elizabeth Deschanel and Sam Trammell would feel like more than a micro-budget indie, but such is not the case with the sci-fi dud ReEntry. Remember the plot point in Annihilation where Oscar Isaac inexplicably returns from a void, only to find himself barely functioning as a human or relating to his wife, Natalie Portman? This is essentially the structure for first-time director Brendan Choisnet’s film, working from Daniel Nayeri’s script, but it removes any nuance or menace from the proceedings.

Deschanel plays Elenore, the wife of Lucas (Trammell), a scientist who disappears for a year after going into a portal to another dimension. He returns one year later, and she begins to suspect he’s not who she remembers. Cracks begin to form as she wonders how she can move on, if he’s not the man she’s come to love. Thankfully, without spoiling, Choisnet doesn’t belabor the point until the finale, and the second half provides a sort of interesting rumination on love. It’s just too bad that neither Lucas nor Elenore are terribly interesting as characters, nor do Descanel or Trammell give the kinds of performances that rise above the middling material.

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Film Festivals, Interviews, Uncategorized

Heartland Film Festival 2024: Interview with Small Town Universe director Katie Dellamaggiore

October 12, 2024 Ben Sears Leave a comment

Below is my conversation with Katie Dellamaggiore, the director of Small Town Universe, a documentary about a small town in West Virginia, where cell phones and wireless internet are forbidden. But beyond the quirky origins of the town, the film explores the people within it, and their reliance on the funding that makes the space telescope possible. The film is making its Indiana premiere at the Heartland Film Festival. We discuss her origins with the project, the state of science in America, and belief in extraterrestrials. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Ben Sears: With any documentary, I’m always curious about how you initially came across the subject matter. So what was it that got you interested in making Small Town Universe? Do you have a personal connection to the town?

Katie Dellamaggiore: Actually, I had no prior relationship to the topic. For better or worse, I didn’t get much of a science education when I was younger. My husband, who’s my filmmaking partner, he’s very much into science fiction, like Star Wars and Star Trek. So I didn’t have that background going into it, but I think that’s probably why I was somewhat attracted to the story. Because it’s fun to learn something as an adult, making a film about a subject that you didn’t get a chance to learn about when you were younger.

In 2015 or 2016, I had just finished a film called Brooklyn Castle, and we had just had 2 kids, and my mom had died that year as well. But one night, my husband and I were chatting, and I asked, ‘do you think there’s a town with no cell phones?’ It wasn’t really clear to me at the time, but I was addicted to my cell phone, and it was the ramp up to the election. I had two babies at home but wasn’t getting out of the house a lot, and I think I was missing my mom a lot and her phone calls. So I googled it, and that’s how Green Bank, West Virginia came up. I couldn’t believe it! As I got more excited about the topic, it just evolved into something more than that. At the beginning, I thought maybe there could be a story about the fact that there are no cell phones, but it became more interesting to tell a story from the point of view of how the science was connecting people in the town.

BS: One of the segments of the documentary is about the people who move there specifically because they have the Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity. Did they have any kinds of reservations around you filming with them? Did it take any convincing to get them to be part of this?

KD: It’s interesting, because when I did that initial google search, a lot of the videos were news pieces that tended to hyper-focus on them because it’s kind of sexy and gets clicks. Some of them were desperate, for good reason, to want to tell their stories. Sometimes, maybe they weren’t aware that people were taking advantage of them, but they were very open because they want to be heard and have their story told. So I’d say there wasn’t a lot of trepidation because they wanted to get the word out. That being said, it was really important for me to figure out how to tell this story without having it ever feel like some sort of “gotcha” piece. It’s not my job to figure out the science behind this.

Sue, the person we ended up filming with, we hit it off because we’re both from New York. There was just an instant connection, and she was really happy to share her story. There wasn’t a lot of trepidation, but I think I felt like it could easily go in a bad direction. They will tell you that there are members of the community who maybe shouldn’t be on camera. So I just chose not to film with them. But it made me really happy, and they’ve all seen the film, and they’re really happy with it because there’s not much worse than having the subjects not feel good about the end product. The film isn’t about specifically their issue, so I’m happy for them to use it as much as they want. But Small Town Universe isn’t out there trying to convince people that cell phones are bad.

BS: Were there any technical limitations that made it difficult to shoot with them?

KD: The whole town, actually. For the majority of the time, we weren’t allowed to use wireless microphones. It wasn’t just Sue, but it was part of the rules that existed in Green Bank. Whenever we were filming in and around the telescope, we had to use a boom microphone. Not just a boom mic, but it had to be plugged into the back of the camera. So we had to make really small movements and couldn’t get far away from the action. It kind of challenged the way that we captured things. We were always really close to everything that was going on.

Looking back, we have some B-roll of wide shots, but the action was never happening in a wide shot. We always had to be right next to people, so that added some intimacy, but it was really because we had no choice. If we were really far away from the subject, we wouldn’t be capturing sound and I’d have no idea what was going on.

BS: When you first started filming, did you have a set idea of who you were going to follow, or did that change as you got more oriented into the town?

KD: My first trip to Green Bank, I went by myself as a research trip. I met George on my first trip, and then I met the folks who worked at the telescope and a woman named Karen early on. There were a few people I wanted to film with, and it didn’t pan out. Within a year of going down there, I met Ellie and her family, and Sue.

BS: One of the recurring questions that comes up throughout Small Town Universe is whether anybody believes in extraterrestrials, or life on other planets. Did you believe in that before shooting the film, and did that change all once you were done?

KD: I didn’t really think about it much before I started working on this. If you had asked me, I’d probably say ‘yea, I hope so!’ But like I said, I wasn’t the person who devoured a lot of content about it. My husband watches stuff like Ancient Aliens [laughs], but that wasn’t me. Now, I think, how can you believe that there’s not? Or at least scientifically speaking, when you understand the science behind it, there’s nothing kooky about it at all. I’m all-in about the Dirac equation now, and I just think that, as a species, there’s nothing better than continuing to challenge what we think and what we know. That’s what science is, and the science of extraterrestrial life is, like, a constant search for something that we don’t know the answer to. I think that just makes us better human beings, to not stop asking.

BS: Part of the backbone of the film is how the American government treats science as a priority. Did making this film change how you view our prioritization of science and exploration?

KD: It doesn’t appear that it’s a priority right now. I’m not an expert on this, but I think we tend to prioritize things that make money. Basic scientific research often doesn’t make money, so what’s wonderful about this telescope is that they have this program called Open Skies, where anybody who has an idea can apply for time on the telescope. So when federal funding gets taken away from something like this, that’s the thing that goes away first. For this facility to remain open now, from the National Science Foundation and Breakthrough Listen, it’s great, but it’s not a big government priority. Any kind of space exploration today is being funded by billionaires, for better or worse.

Small Town Universe will have in-person screenings at the Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis, and will be available to stream online throughout the festival. Buy tickets here.

Film Festivals, Uncategorized

Heartland Film Festival 2024: North Putnam, The Waiting Game, Attachment Project

October 10, 2024 Ben Sears 1 Comment

“Do you remember when we had two grocery stores?” It’s an off-handed remark between two nameless citizens of director Joel Fendelman’s titular small town, but it reveals a great deal about its place in the world. North Putman follows a school year in and around the central Indiana school district, popping in and out of all of its various issues, big and small. It’s a fascinatingly complex look at small town life, and the ambitions of its residents. Whether it’s the big topics like a school board meeting discussing DEI initiatives, a kid bringing a knife to school, or something as small as kids telling jokes on a school bus, Fendelman’s camera gives it all equal weight. The film may not be anything revolutionary that wasn’t already explored in films like Frederick Wiseman’s Monrovia, Indiana (which is situated just 30 miles from North Putnam), but it’s an engrossing look at small town life under a microscope.

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Indiana lives and breathes basketball, so a documentary like The Waiting Game, which chronicles the American Basketball Association’s retired players fighting for their well-earned pensions is – pardon the pun – a slam dunk. Michael Husain’s feature debut is more traditional in approach, with talking head interviews and Ken Burns-style photo overlays, but it always returns to its subjects and their quest for justice. It’s the kind of documentary that easily provokes, spotlighting the history of the ABA, and how instrumental their players were in the development of the NBA as we know it today. But those players, when the NBA absorbed the ABA, lost the rights to their pension and the healthcare that went with it. Whether you have an encyclopedic knowledge of basketball history, or simply want to learn about a modern David versus Goliath story, The Waiting Game is a confident piece of non-fiction storytelling.

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Joy Dietrich’s Attachment Project takes a personal look at adoption, and her long-simmering feelings towards the process and how difficult it can be for both children and adults to adapt. The film follows Joy, and a handful of fellow foreign-born adoptees, who struggled to fit in to their new surroundings when they were kids. What follows is a number of heartbreaking scenes that chronicle their parents often controversial ways of acclimating the kids through a number of difficult methods of therapy that often leave them off worse than the beginning. Dietrich herself goes on her own journey of discovery to reconnect with her adoptive father after a prolonged absence. The film raises a number of introspective questions that adoptees often face: Why did my birth parents abandon me? Am I worthy of being loved? Would my life have been better if I had remained with my birth parents? Attachment Project maybe doesn’t provide universal catharsis with its answers, but it shows a fascinating journey for its subjects nonetheless.

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Indy Shorts 2024: Coming of Age

July 25, 2024 Ben Sears Leave a comment

Filmmakers have tackled the coming of age genre through countless ways and methods over the years, which makes the Coming of Age block at Indy Shorts one of the more enticing options available. Caught on Tape, written and directed by Chris Alan Evans and Alexander Jeffery, plays into the inherent awkwardness faced by teenage boys in the VHS era. When Finn first learns about the glories of pornography, he hatches a scheme to find his father’s collection. There’s a number of laughs and genuine truths to be found, in a film all about staying true to yourself during a time when everyone seems to tell you how the world works.

Ebb & Flow, written and directed by Nay Tabbara, takes a decidedly more dramatic and feminine approach, setting one young girl’s desires against the turmoil in Beirut. The threat of violence, referenced frequently throughout the film, works nicely as a metaphor as kids are forced to grow up more quickly than they should be. Of course, Loulwa and her friend are more concerned with sneaking away to meet up with a few boys on the beach, as she pines for her first kiss. Even if you don’t live in a warzone, there’s something universal about the film, where something like a teenage crush can feel like the end of the world at times.

Another non-English entry brimming with heart, Tomorrow, looks at the bonds of brothers as they come to terms with their differences. One younger brother prepares to go to school while his older brother, who has Down Syndrome, is left behind. The film is sparse in its plot, but it’s full of touching details that feel genuine, and the young performers are simply lovely, as if director Estefania Ortiz simply observed the actors in their natural habitats.

Easily the most comedic of the block is We Met at Camp, from MCPlaschke, about a group of friends as they obsess over their various summer camp crushes. Plaschke infuses the film with plenty of delightful period details (it takes place in 2004) that feel inherently specific, but with a genuinely queer sensibility. Even if you haven’t had a summer camp crush, there’s something relatable for everyone in the film if you’ve ever had an unattainable crush at a young age. Silly, smart, and heart-warming, We Met at Camp is a gem of the festival.

Finally, Essex Girls speaks to another universal experience of young adulthood. That is, finding the right social circle where you truly belong. Yero Timi-Biu’s film follows Bisola, a young Black girl who finds solidarity with another group of Black friends from a different school, since she is the only Black girl in her grade currently. Think of it as a live-action British version of Inside Out 2, where raging hormones and any number of intangibles lead to questioning loyalty between long-standing friends and the new, cool kids. Timi-Biu gives the film a real sense of care from the film’s opening, even when it veers into predictable character and story beats.

The Coming of Age block will screen at Indy Shorts Film Festival on July 28 at 2:45pm at the Living Room Theaters and in Indianapolis, and virtually through July 28. Buy tickets here.

Film Festivals, Uncategorized

Indy Shorts 2024: Horror

July 24, 2024 Trevor Stucker Leave a comment

Be Right Back follows a seven-year-old girl left alone in her home. When someone knocks on her door, she struggles to believe it is her mother or something sinister. Through excellent production design and cinematography, this film successfully captures what it is like for a child to be left alone and the horrors of what may proceed. The lack of editing during the scenes of tension brought a sense of uneasiness, which paralleled how the protagonist was feeling. The long, narrow hallways provide a feeling of discomfort and claustrophobia, which enhances the mood of the scenario. Despite the ten-minute runtime, the filmmakers bring the stakes to the tier of a feature-length film.

What brings this movie down for me is the ending. While I enjoyed the final moments as a twist, I feel the narrative would’ve improved if it stuck to a child’s nightmare rather than the more sinister approach. Nonetheless, there is real promise from Lucas Paulino and Gabe Ibáñez as they have already mastered the craft of suspense through slow but impactful tension-building.

La Croix sees Jade, a young graphic designer, encounter strange phenomena after practicing a ritual with her friend. While I loved the presentation and imagery-centered scares, this needed to be feature-length to complete the story. Joris Fleurot developed a practical world of ghostly happenings that needed more time to become effective. The first half of the film feels more like the audience is playing catch-up rather than building something of emotional merit. The second half is where the film goes all in on the scares. Through integral sound design and ominous lighting, Fleurot shows true talent in portraying ghostly horror, which I would put on par with most Hollywood filmmakers of today.

Even though I found many aspects to be rushed and underdeveloped, I found the experience as a whole to be worthwhile due to Fleurot’s vision. If this premise became a feature-length film, I would be sure to check it out.

Dark Mommy follows a 911 operator whose average night on the job turns sinister after a group of prank calls turn deadly. I loved how this film utilized body horror. Through articulate sound design and committed physical performances, the film created an uncomfortability that I was not expecting when the movie began. The repetitious nature of the script makes it easy to believe that the protagonist has worked this job for years while building tension for the latter half of the film. The child’s voice performance is just as impactful as the work done physically by the rest of the cast, conveying the emotion needed to build the scares.

The acting in the first few minutes is one of the major setbacks of Dark Mommy. The co-workers bring an unclear tone to the film through their diction and facial expressions, feeling haphazard compared to the level on which the rest of the cast is operating. The final reveal isn’t anything spectacular, mainly staying to genre conventions rather than doing something more powerful. While it isn’t the most powerful or horrific watch, it is worthy of a short film length due to the technical elements and some standout performances.

Nubes sees a daughter who discovers a dark secret in her father’s house, leading her to choose between right and wrong. Watching this film was an empty experience for me. Even though I was taken aback by the beginning reveal, I found the rest of the film to lack the heart and sense of urgency needed for a genre film like this. The film attempts to tackle ideas of familial trauma, but there isn’t enough development to make the experience worthwhile. The orchestral score and colorless production design help convey the mood of the environment, but the story didn’t deliver the thrills or thematic concepts necessary to be called fulfilling.

While I didn’t find many overall takeaways, I did appreciate the style that Edu Escudero utilized to tell the story. Most of the horror is viewed through the atmosphere, and I found it to perfectly complement the bleak and dreadful tone. Even though I wasn’t attracted to the story, I enjoyed it as an exercise in horror filmmaking.

The Horror block will screen at Indy Shorts Film Festival on July 25 at 7:45 at the Living Room Theaters and in Indianapolis, and virtually through July 28. Buy tickets here.

Film Festivals, Uncategorized

Indy Shorts 2024: Indiana Spotlight

July 23, 2024 Ben Sears Leave a comment

The Indiana Spotlight block offers almost 20 short films, providing a potent mix of narrative and documentary short films which showcase Indiana’s unique personality, and the talents of Indiana filmmakers. Though Saving Superman concerns an autistic man from Glen Ellyn, Illinois, its directors, Samuel-Ali Mirpoorian and Adam Oppenheim, are Hoosiers. Mirpoorian has tackled similar subject matter in films like Safe Place and Greener Pastures; namely, the deeply human stories which often fall between the cracks of the small towns that make up this country. The film serves as a character study of Jonathan, an autistic man who idolizes Superman, even going so far as to dress up and march in the Glen Ellyn Fourth of July parade every year. Oppenheim and Mirpoorian arrive at a place of genuine emotion, but if anything is missing from Saving Superman, it’s more time.

Just as individuals make up a community, individual neighborhoods have the ability to exude their own personalities, and that’s exactly that ¡HAWTHORNE! an indy west side story is all about. Josh Chitwood’s film explores the Indianapolis west side community of Hawthorne by digging in to its past, present, and future. The neighborhood has dealt with all manner of socio-economic issues over the years, from a brush with the Klan to its current status as a melting pot of ethnicities and backgrounds. Since I’m also making a documentary about a specific Indianapolis west side neighborhood, ¡HAWTHORNE! shows that there’s no shortage of varied stories to be found, even within a few square miles of each other.

Just a few square miles from where Daniel screens, you can find the subject and the venue showcased in Alex Rodgers’ documentary. For better and worse, the film feels first and foremost like a project amongst friends, as it tells the quirky story of Daniel Jacobsen, one of the founders of the Kan Kan Cinema in Indianapolis. Though the film could easily be expanded more to dive into all of the nooks and crannies of Daniel’s life, Daniel remains a fun look at creative passion and how it can be manifested to better the community.

Just like Daniel, The Invisible Crown approaches an inside look at an Indiana creator. In this case, Hannah Lindgren (who also co-produces the film) takes us inside her struggle with endometriosis, and the struggles which women often face in medical diagnoses. Lindgren holds nothing back, displaying all her vulnerabilities as she approaches a fourth surgery to get a handle on her disease, and the results are emotionally rewarding.

One of the block’s few narrative films, Places We Knew, actually doesn’t even take place in this country, much less this state. Writer and director Oliver William Staton shows that you really can’t go home again, even when your home is halfway across the world. It’s the semi-familiar story of a Japanese-American young adult returning to his boyhood home in rural Japan as he tries to reconcile with his mother. Though the set-up is well worn territory, Staton lets the drama play out naturally, which is especially rewarding in a genre where emotions are frequently heightened.

Speaking of unique films, Kurtis Bowersock’s Physical Matters is one of the festival’s most unique offerings, in both style and substance. The film’s threadbare story follows a pair of marine biologists as they dissect a beached whale. Animated with a kind of watercolor aesthetic, Physical Matters is short, sweet, and to the point, but there’s an intangible heart that bleeds through after the credits roll. Indie animation is rare on this scale, and Bowersock makes it look easy.

The Indiana Spotlight blocks will screen at Indy Shorts Film Festival on July 23 at 7 and 7:30pm at the Living Room Theaters and in Indianapolis, and virtually through July 28. Buy tickets here.