After an evidently successful first date, Evan and Marceline head back to her place. “Welcome to Bushwick,” by director Henry Jinings, is about the nerves and perceptions of a man and a woman approaching intimacy for the first time. We pick up as the two young Brooklynites enter the apartment of Marceline. “Do you want some Laphroaig?” she asks, and, though he doesn’t know what that is, he agrees. Indeed he’s jittery from the jump — it’s been awhile for him, and he suspects where the night may be going. If you’ve seen Jinings’ previous short, “Losing It” (one of the more underrated shorts of the last couple years), you’ll recognize a similar foundation. In both films, shy, awkward young men go on dates with mysterious young women, and get more than they bargained for. Both films are impressively precise — the attention is on building atmospheres of dread and suspense. From this vulnerability, Jinings unleashes, and once the seal has broken, it becomes a question of what happens now?
Written and directed by Henry Jinings. Starring Tim Platt and Liba Vaynberg. Cinematography by Andrew Ellmaker. Produced by Raj Trivedi.
Anxiously convinced his flu-like symptoms could be something much worse, a luckless Brooklynite searches for medical care. Byron Leon directs “Sickly,” a tense ride through New York City that was unbelievably made before the Covid-19 pandemic. After coming down with a bad cough and a high fever, ...
A woman returns home to a constantly shifting domestic and mental landscape in this retelling of “Meshes of the Afternoon,” Maya Deren’s landmark avant-garde film. Meg Case and Brad Porter direct “Meshes of the After,” swapping 1940’s Hollywood for Brooklyn current day, and grainy black and white...
On the outskirts of a Mexican village, a former elementary school teacher emerges badly bruised on the shore of a remote lake and must find her way back to town. “La Oscuridad,” directed by Jorge Sistos Moreno, is a visceral portrait of Marina, a woman left for dead. She somehow survives the orde...
