It’s common for artists to talk about the challenges being an artist.
In film, it’s as frequent as ever. There are tons of films, both mainstream and indie, about how hard it is to be a filmmaker. There are often meta-textual elements, usually drawing from the filmmaker’s personal experiences. My favorites of these types of films include Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, Shadow of the Vampire, and Birdman. These types of films are omnipresent at film festivals because many young filmmakers can relate to these movies, or are even inspired by them. If you’re going to make this type of movie, you need to give it a unique twist, and Adam Ninyo did just that for his debut feature, Disencumber. The film tells the story of two friends, Alex (Patrick Dunning) and Darren (Jack Schrader) , who are struggling financially trying to achieve their goals in the realms of filmmaking and academia. As such, they decide to rob their drug dealer. Ninyo takes the familiar trappings of the genre and gives it a cool spin that helps it stand out. I had the opportunity to chat with Ninyo about Disencumber, how he drew on American crime films to tell his story of struggle artists finding their passion.
The Knockturnal: There are lots of movies about directionless filmmakers or artists, how did you make yours stand out.
AN: I tried to make the filmmaking element of Darren’s character feel ambiguous, as though the audience are outsiders looking in. You see the gear and him pantomiming directing, but you don’t get dragged into the specifics of what he’s doing. In an earlier draft of the script, there was a meta, goat-themed superhero film that he was trying to make. As funny of a visual as that would have been, it would have detracted from the characters and story and confused the viewer into thinking that this is a film about filmmaking.
I feel like very often when I tell people that I’m a filmmaker/photographer, they have a half-formed idea of what that looks like on a moment-to-moment basis; they picture the lights, the cameras, boom mics, but the don’t picture the nitty-gritty – similar to how I have friends who are software engineers and I understand the broad strokes of what they do, but not the specifics in any meaningful way.
By keeping the filmmaking stuff more elemental, instead of bogging down the film with technical details, I tried to keep the focus on Darren’s dilemma, rather than his occupation. That Darren is a filmmaker is almost irrelevant – he could be a painter, a photographer. At his core, he’s trying to reconcile his life as an artist with his life as someone who needs to make a living and find a level of happiness.
The Knockturnal: What inspired the usage of the more crime elements in the film?
AN: I’ve always had a soft-spot for NYC-set crime fiction and noir, particularly in terms of atmosphere. I really wanted to do something that captured that. I felt that adding a dangerousness to the film would help set it apart from other mumblecore films and make it more interesting and unpredictable.
It also allowed me to escalate the stakes as the film went on, so that the second half would have a different, more intense feel than the first half.
The Knockturnal: At what point in the writing process did you decide to incorporate the crime elements?
AN: Early drafts had this as much more of a conventional crime-thriller in the vein of Shallow Grave. There was some really crazy shit in there. In one early draft, Kyle, Alex, and Darren all end up killing each other. Kyle also had a best friend who is a heroin-addicted hitman. It was tonally all over the place.
When I was first writing this, there was an element of cynicism, of, “I can’t sell this unless it’s a genre film.” I eventually realized that it just wasn’t working as a conventional crime thriller and that my heart really wasn’t in the darker, edgier elements.
So, it became more of a “slice-of-life” style dramedy with some crime-thriller aspects, rather than a typical “heist gone wrong” film filled with murders and double crosses.
The Knockturnal: A running theme throughout the film is financial instability, regardless of one’s industry, what prompted this exploration?
AD: New Yorker, millennial angst. I have friends that are making less than me, and some that are making way more. One thing we all have in common is that we’re scared shitless about money: that we won’t have enough, not only to survive, but to do the things that we want to do. We won’t have enough to live in New York, enough to make films, build businesses, start families, etc.
We’re all in our 20s, so we were just old enough to see what the ’08 financial crisis (not to mention the Covid-related one) did to everyone but the uber-wealthy. Furthermore, given how expensive living in New York is, money is always at the forefront of people’s minds – with every meal, grocery trip, night out, etc. It’s insane to consider that in New York, you can be making good money (for anywhere else in the country) and still not be saving or investing any money.
Neither Alex nor Darren is on the brink of homelessness, but they both have expensive dreams of upward mobility within their field. Darren doesn’t dream of being fabulously wealthy, he dreams that he’ll get to wake up and call himself an artist. Same with Alex, but with academia.
The Knockturnal: The film also explores the difference between happiness and passion, what made you want to tackle this theme? What do you think is the difference between the two?
AN: That’s a very personal question I’ve grappled with. I think you can be happy and complacent, but if you want to grow as an artist you have to be passionate about it, and sometimes being passionate about something can make you miserable.
In some ways, I fucking hate this film – not the result, but the process – I hate all the sleepless nights, the marathon editing sessions after days of work, the stress of having to wonder if I’m disappointing my cast and crew and everyone who believed in me.
I never thought about shelving the project though and I powered through – because I felt the need to make it – I was passionate about it, and I think that it genuinely made me grow as both a filmmaker and a person. Having gotten through this arduous process really clarified for me that, yes, I really do want to make movies for a living.
The Knockturnal: What do you want your audiences main takeaway to be from the film?
AN: I hope that they have a fun time and give me money to make more movies. I also hope that, on a philosophical level it maybe inspires some viewer somewhere to pause for a second and think about if what they’re doing is making them happy.
I also hope that it inspires other no-budget filmmakers to take the leap and make the film that they want to.
Disencumber is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime
