Gotham Week Night 3: The Locals delivered six exciting short films on their way to becoming feature-length films.
Located at Nitehawk Cinema near Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, this event brought together filmmakers, actors, producers and giddy audience members for this night of fresh film projects. Nitehawk went above and beyond to provide a stellar experience, discreetly serving food and beverages throughout the 2-hour showing and adjusting the curtains for each film’s aspect ratio.
Loser by Colleen McGuiness was the first piece of the evening. The film was dry, witty, and dark. The short film ends with a shooting at our main character Alice’s yogurt shop job, and this is where the full-length version will begin. The rest of the movie plans to explore Alice’s journey to heal her trauma via time travel.
Places I’ve Called My Own by Sushma Khadepaun was a beautiful and heartbreaking 29-minute short film exploring the themes of queerness, death, grief and what it means to be family as a woman comes home to Mumbai from the US for her father’s funeral.
The Other Side by Josh Leong began “based on a true story.” Immediately, the audience perked up in a way they hadn’t yet. This film offers a no-holds-barred look at life for boys in an Ethiopian orphanage. The 17-year-old Abel that the film follows is a real person Josh met while he was on a mission trip to Ethiopia. The reality for many of these young men is that the only thing that awaits their graduation from an orphanage is living on the streets. The real Abel is now working in filmmaking.
In the Flesh by Emily Frances Kaplan tells a tale as old as time about a housewife longing for more, especially sexually. There’s a twist about her hot butcher (played by Emily’s hairdresser, who had never acted before) that she isn’t aware of until fate brings them together for dinner. As it turns out, her fantasies have been about a trans man. This piece is as funny as it is poignant.
The Ballad of Tita and the Machines directed by Miguel Angel Caballero and written by Luis Antonio Aldana and Miguel Angel Caballero imagines a future where AI determines a worker’s value based on a scan of their potential. This film draws attention to the importance of “unskilled” labor and the absurdity of that classification.
Rainbow Girls by Nana Duffuor was the final film of the evening. It tells the story of three young, black and trans women who begin robbing high-end and luxury retailers. This film is based on the real events of a group of young cisgender and trans women who robbed high-end stores in 2014. The film is quick, funny and totally engrossing. Nana reached out to the queer community and found trans women of color to center the film around, and their real-life friendships shine through on screen.
Keep an eye out for these projects as they may be coming to theatres in the near future!
Written by Hannah Breshears
