Hasta La Ideas

A darkly comic take on rural cults wins top honors at the LES Film Festival

If you think “new noir” sounds like the latest buzzword designed to put Lana del Rey on the map, check out “The Kook.” The short, made by two NYC directors known as Peking (full disclosure: also frequent Cool Hunting collaborators), won the Audience Award after a sold-out screening held by the LES Film Festival last night. The moment helps shed some light on why the shadowy genre continues to feel so relevant.

In just its second year, the festival celebrates projects made for $200,000 or less. In many cases, much less. Co-founder Shannon Walker explains this “special time” for filmmaking as one when “you can tell a great story for not a lot of money”, citing a film shot entirely on a Nokia phone.

But, Walker emphasizes, the focus is on great storytelling. The selection process comes down to whether committee members “audibly have a reaction to it,” as Tony Castle (part of the fest’s creative team) puts it. The Kook, the story of a cult of people who wear yellow sweatsuits and rock bowl cuts, inspired plenty of noisy reactions among the audience.

The film follows Fa, the naive protagonist and enthusiastic cult member played by T Sahara Meer, on her journey for the truth after finding evidence that the operation is a ruse. She stumbles upon the leader, Malcolm (played by Dan Burkarth), a lowlife who is suffering some unknown pressure that leads him to manipulate his followers. In the process of Fa’s discovery, we see her pull back the curtain, revealing an unsettling truth and in turn finding unknown strength within.

Art direction, consisting of thrifted costumes and borrowed locations, makes one of the strongest cases for low-budget filmmaking by creating a complete off-kilter world. Even something as incongruous as an ’80s-era control panel embedded in a tree is believable.

The finely-crafted piece springs to life through gorgeous noir lighting and subtle cinematography, made all the more compelling with precise editing and rich sound design. Under the helm of the skilled directors, the excellent performances help cement a cohesive tone.

The team, comprised of Nat Livingston-Johnson and Greg Mitnick, have a background in music videos, documentary (see Cool Hunting Video) and commercial work, but it’s The Kook that truly showcases their talent for dark comedy. They’ve already earned rave reviews and awards at independent film festivals coast to coast, and we’re looking forward to more success for the film and the filmmakers.

To see more, watch the trailer for The Kook.

Standout films and documentaries from this year’s film festival

This year’s Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, presented the requisite set of features and documentaries with the not-so-surprising general consensus that the smaller, independent works transcended the generally lackluster star-studded blockbusters. Whether speaking to current issues that plague the American conscience or shedding light on new innovators, each film we saw or heard about felt unique to 2012. We’ve selected a combination of documentaries and narratives that stood out and set a tone for this year’s new ideas and political issues.

Arbitrage

Nicholas Jarecki’s financial thriller Arbitrage premiered on Saturday. The film presents a novel perspective of the financial crisis through amiable hedge fund executive Robert Miller, played by Richard Gere, as he struggles to cover up a series of his crimes. In spite of Miller’s problems—cooked books, multi-million dollar debts, a fed-up mistress and a suspicious wife—he’s able to talk his way out of almost every conflict and, most impressively, he ultimately charms the audience. Jarecki leaves us wondering whether we might make the same choices in Miller’s position—a tack that filmmakers don’t usually employ when examining Wall Street. Jarecki explains, “I didn’t want to do a Bernie Madoff story because I had heard something Madoff said in jail: ‘Fuck my victims. I carried them for 25 years. Now I’m doing 125.’ To me, those were just the words of a sociopath, and I thought that was too limited of a character.”

Jarecki collaborated with cinematographer Yorick LeSaux (I Am Love) and composer Cliff Martinez (Drive) to build momentum through landmark locations of NYC’s financial world including the Sherry Netherland and Four Seasons hotels and the GM building. Nate Parker and Sundance alum Brit Marling perform on par with their superstar co-stars Gere, Susan Sarandon and Tim Roth.

Finding North

The documentary Finding North premiered on Sunday, offering an eye-opening tale of hunger in America on the heels of its sister film Food Inc. Finding North defines America’s problem not as food scarcity, but as “food insecurity”—that is, when one does not know from where one’s next meal will come. This condition, which one half of Americans face today, leads to the purchase of processed junk food and cheap carbohydrates, turning obesity into a close cousin of starvation. The film was helmed by Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush, with supporting star power by Jeff Bridges and Silverbush’s husband, chef Tom Colicchio. Cinematographer and Sundance alum Dan Gold follows the subjects through their daily life, searching for the source of their next meal. The strong pop score by T-Bone Burnett and The Civil Wars adds a unique emotionality to the film.

Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present

Besides the two features we caught, there were several titles drawing buzz throughout the festival. Reports abounded of audiences being driven to tears by the intensely revealing documentary, Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present. During the spring 2010 show at the MoMA, performance artist Marina Abramovic would sit for hours on end inviting audience members to sit down across from her and stare. The lauded film traces Abramovic’s quest to “archive” her art by imparting her performances to younger artists, and her heartbreaking love affair with fellow artist Ulay.

Indie Game: The Movie

The documentary Indie Game: The Movie focuses on several independent video game artists as they work for years on a single project outside the confines of a major developer. Launched in May 2010 as a Kickstarter project, first-time filmmakers James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajote single-handedly produced, shot, directed and edited the film, picking up the award for cinema editing in the festival’s grand jury vote.

Questo weekend da non perdersi l’ #electrovenice. Cancelli aperti domani dalle 13, se non avete ancora il biglietto ve lo potete fare direttamente alle casse ufficiali dalle 10 di mattina. Lineup composta da: Lele Sacchi, NT89, Andro, Reset!, Goose, Sven Väth, Afrojack, Deadmou5, Fatboy Slim. Qui il teaser.

Une intéressante démonstration d’art et d’animations vidéos créé par le studio anglais FutureDeluxe pour le Perth International Arts Festival. Un film produit par Radical Media / Heckler sur la bande son “Magnetic Man – Flying into Tokyo”. A découvrir dans la suite de l’article.

Previously on Fubiz

• Sci Fi : Life in 2050
• Nikon Festival
• Short and Nice

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Loro non hanno bisogno di presentazione perchè sono davvero dei numeri uno. Quest’anno il The Wish Come True festival si è svolto a Toronto e queste sono le immagini di reportage dell’evento. Una vera figata, lo voglio anche qui al Parco Sempione!