Person to Person

A dizzy trip through the mid-1990s with a dysfunctional American family. Reliving a distracted child's birthday party, an emotionless wedding, a Halloween in a garage and a Christmas marked with alcohol, drugs and perversion, the film is a crumpled letter from a filmmaker to his family: a shattered kaleidoscope of the destructive patterns that have trapped and wounded its members.

Waking up the morning after hosting a party, a man discovers a stranger passed out on his floor. He spends the rest of the day trying to convince her to leave.

The Sixth Year is an art world drama series in five episodes, which re-interprets the format of the TV series. Set in the New York art world, it stages the backstage and theatricalizes the social interactions and power games, the aspirations, passions, and everyday realities of the field. The screenplay is based on interviews with artists, curators, gallerists, collectors, and art advisors, whose opinions, anecdotes, and gossip it abstracts and extrapolates into a fictional narrative.

In the wake of Shepard Fairey’s arrest for vandalism, Dustin Guy Defa explores graffiti and street art in contemporary Detroit. What is vandalism? And how will the city define itself going forward?

A young woman invites a vagabond to stay the night at her house but her feelings of insecurity threaten to overshadow the visit.

A humorless loner attempts to win the admiration of a drifter with his debut performance at the local comedy club.

A woman is confronted by a stranger, who believes she’s been edited out of their story.

Dan Sallitt in conversation with Jaime N. Christley about Red River

Scenes from the working life of a male director: Defa sophisticatedly lampoons masculinity in filmmaking with this sly, surprising meta-movie. (Courtesy of Film Society of Lincoln Center.)

A young woman recounts a story to a group of friends who listen with rapt attention, but the tale sounds very familiar… Another masterful and clever work by one of the world’s premier shorts filmmakers.