gen art film festival premieres in new york city

The Gen Art Film Festival kicked off last night at the Chelsea Clearview West Theater with the short film Regarding Sarah and feature length Crashing.



Regarding Sarah directed by Michelle Porter is centered around an old woman who starts videotaping her life after she realizes that her memory was fading. The edited footage of her life serves as her virtual memory, and the short investigates (quite efficiently, i must say) how this all begins to affect her life. i loved the idea of exploring the fact that everyone begins to forget moments in our lives, and if we spent all of our time trying to remember every detail of our life, we would forget to just sit back and enjoy life.



I was really looking forward to Crashing, which stars an old crush of mine, Campbell Scott. He plays the role of Richard McMurry, the writer with writer's block, whose life is seemingly getting worse and worse until he finds himself on crashing on the couch of two attractive co-eds, who are also aspiring writers. Much of the script was narrative -- the internal thought process of McMurray as a writer who transforms from disillusioned writer to someone fully inspired by change. I don't know whether it was the fact that I related to a lot of the internal dialogue (as a writer) or whether Campbell Scott is so darn adorable, but I really enjoyed this film. on a side note, David Cross makes a cameo. I almost didn't recognize him in the film without his glasses.

The Gen Art film festival continues for the rest of the week, and there are still some tickets left for the rest of the 7 total films premiering in New York this week. For more information, visit the film festival's official site.

PS. Gen Art is also bringing some awareness to the Adrienne Shelley Foundation, a new foundation that will help future generations of women find their place behind the camera. When filmmaker, Adrienne Shelly, was murdered last November in New York, the film community suffered an enormous loss. Adrienne, an early alum filmmaker and member of Gen Art's film advisory board, had been eagerly awaiting news of whether her latest movie (which she wrote, directed and acted in), Waitress, made it into this year's Sundance Film Festival. (It did, and was quickly snatched up by Fox Searchlight.) Pulse spoke with Adrienne's husband, Andy Ostroy, about what made people love Adrienne, what he sees as her legacy, and how he hopes to help other female filmmakers in her memory.