It’s been a while since the MDFF guys have held one of their one-off special screenings Dan Montgomery and Kazik Radwanski have been a little distracted taking their latest film How Heavy This Hammer around the festival circuit. (It’ll be opening here soon. Keep an eye out for it it’s good.)
But they’re back at The Royal tonight with the Canadian premiere of Stinking Heaven, the new film from Nathan Silver, the American indie director whose previous films include Exit Elena and Uncertain Terms.
Silver’s movies tend to situate their characters in restricted spaces – Uncertain Terms was set at a home for pregnant teens somewhere in upstate New York, for example – and let the conflicts evolve organically from whatever emotional issues are already present. Silver’s stories don’t develop as much as deepen, his actors defining their characters in long, improvised scenes.
Set in a New Jersey halfway house “for sober living” sometime in the early 90s, Stinking Heaven follows the same strategy, more or less, following a handful of characters thrown together by circumstance. But the packaging is different: Silver and cinematographer Adam Ginsberg shot this one in low-definition 4:3 video to better bolster its sense of period.
The intentionally crappy aesthetic makes us work a little harder to truly see the characters’ dynamics – especially how the bond between Jim (Keith Poulson) and Lucy (Deragh Campbell), the couple who run the place, is challenged by Ann (Hannah Gross), whose arrival threatens to upset pretty much everything and everyone. Campbell and Gross previously co-starred in Matthew Porterfield’s I Used To Be Darker their relationship is markedly different here.
The show starts at 8 pm tickets are $10 at the door or $8 in advance. Campbell will be present for a Q&A after the screening. You’ll want to catch that she’s one of the most interesting young actors in town, and I’d be very curious to hear what she has to say about this gig.
