Notes from our July 7th Screening

A happy crowd of New Yorkers braved the July heat to pack 92YTribeca’s air-conditioned screening room on July 7th.  The show began with the standard recap of what was going on in Jay and Victor’s lives.  Victor has two web series online right now: The Realm of Larp, and Funny Cause it’s True.  Jay is finishing up tow features with the promise of a trailer for one of them at next month’s show.

Joining Jay and Victor was guest judge Ben Roesch, a film fan who Jay described as “a foremost Iron Mule expert.”  Ben has been coming to Iron Mule screenings since 2007 and has probably soon more short comedy films than your average person.  Who better to judge than him?

Victor and Jay welcome Ben Roesch
(photo by Tom Henning)

The first film of the night came courtesy of our partner organization, iThentic.com.  We screened an episode of their series Husbands, which tells the story of the aftermath of two gay celebrities’ accidental marriage in Las Vegas.

Our first block of films in competition included Dave Green’s Ham Sandwich, a story of a man who discovers a magical sandwich that sends him back in time with potentially disastrous consequences.  Next was a short from UK animator Felix Massie, Keith Reynolds Can’t Make it Tonight.  This film is sort of a stick-figure Mad Men gone deadly.

Felix wasn’t at the screening, so instead Jay and Victor interviewed 92YTribeca intern Paolo Avenati as if he was Felix.  They didn’t learn much, but they had fun.

Victor and Jay interview Paolo -- um, Felix.
(photo by Tom Henning)

The next film in the lineup was Paolo Sasseneli’s Uerra.  Paolo is a famous TV and film actor in Italy, and this was his first short.  Beautifully shot (in 35mm! remember that?), Uerra is a period film that tells the story of a group of people living in an apartment building struggling with the aftermath of the Second World War.  And it’s a comedy.  Paolo couldn’t make it to New York, but he sent a representative, his friend and fellow actor Laura Caparrotti, who was on hand to talk about Paolo and his work and Italian shorts in general.  Laura explained that the film was shot in a very thick Italian dialect that few people outside of the region can understand.  (Naturally, our audience couldn’t understand it either, but that’s why there were English subtitles).

Victor and Jay with Laura Caparrotti
(photo by Tom Henning)

Two more films were up next:  Chris Capel’s commercial spoof Naptime! in which we learned about a product that will silence even the most annoying of children, and First Mate, from brother filmmaking team, Conor and Tyler Byrne.  Conor and Tyler were at the show to talk about their movie and what it’s like to makes movies with your brother (apparently there’s punching involved).

with the brothers Byrne
(photo by Tom Henning)

Our last film in competition was Stephen Neary’s Doctor Breakfast.  We’ve shown some other films by Stephen at past Iron Mules, but this one is really something special.  It’s about a guy whose soul escapes and starts eating things and then some deer show up and try to console the guy, and, well, it’s going to make absolutely no sense unless you watch it.  So take a look.

Then, while our vote counters were tabulating the audience votes and our secret cabal was tabulating the judges’ votes, we premiered out latest installment in the monthly “Wanna be a Star” series, Zombie Barbeque.  The film starred Aaron Rudelson, who was randomly chosen at the June screening to star in his very own film.  It was written by Ryan Guiterman and directed by Jovon Outlaw, and starred Aaron as a Zombie having trouble getting people to attend his barbeque.  Aaron happens to be an actor, so his performance (done entirely in zombie language with English subtitles) was quite convincing.

Then it was time to announce the winners, and the audience favorite went to First Mate and the judges award went to Keith Reynolds Can’t Make it Tonight.  But everyone was a winner as we moved on to the after party where drinks were had,  jokes were cracked, and mingling was done until it was late and people went back to their (hopefully air-conditioned) homes.

Join us at 92YTribeca on August 4th for our next screening!