A distinctive piece of homemade filmmaking that’s awkwardly funny and intriguing. Arriving and departing on its own track, "Making Eyes" is a lo-fi film about locking eyes with a stranger on the NYC subway and falling in love. An office worker who gets by with his Mad Men impressions keeps seeing the same women on his commute to work and can’t get her out of his head. When he finally decides to introduce himself, she’s surprisingly receptive to his shifty presence and even invites him to a party (which he attends after pretending to visit “a sick friend”). Despite his uncouth manner, the party-goers aren’t entirely weirded out by him, and the woman seems to actually like him. But something changes on his way to the bathroom after a roommate encounter, which sets him off in a new direction. Directed by Sean Dunn, previously a co-director on "The Confabulators" (NoBudge Selection 2013), "Making Eyes" achieves similar strangeness and unease, but the modern HD of the previous film is replaced with the dated aesthetic of 90’s home videos via hi8 camcorder. Dunn leans heavily into awkwardness and absurdity and makes it his own. -KA