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The series for local and independent film showcases diverse short work by three artists. Author and filmmaker Hannah Dobbz’s “Squat or Rot: A Squatter’s Highlight Reel” combines sequences from three documentaries about New York City squatters, dating from the 1980s and ’90s. The videos (one narrated by Ed Asner) are sympathetic to squatters, and ask such pointed questions as whether “gentrification” should be renamed “displacement,” and why talk of homelessness never interrogates the workings of the real-estate market, like competition between poor people and speculators.
Three shorts by Justin Crimone include: “The Brazen Kitchen,” a local cooking show; the barroom comedy “Annie’s Birthday”; and “Spirit House,” Crimone’s taut entry in the 48 Hour Horror Film Project, about a house-sitting gig gone supernaturally awry.
Also screening is J. Shanks Kindlon’s dreamlike “Vocabulary of the Mysteries,” which remixes Greek mythology to give Hephaestus, rebel outcast son of Zeus, a robot girlfriend and a platter full of wicked beats. The 20-minute short, marked by strong black-and-white visuals, climaxes in a dance battle.
This article appears in Feb 5-11, 2014.
