In this instructional magic video gone awry, a young magician comes to terms with the difficult reality that doing coin tricks may not be enough. “Do You Want to Learn Magic?” directed by and starring the real-life magician, Chris Fanelli, is a free-roaming mixture of infomercial, personal history, and surreal narrative. What begins as a promo video selling a series of VHS tapes (“Card Magic,” “Money Magic,” “Italian Magic,” etc) soon deconstructs into an identity crisis. To meet his stated goal of becoming the greatest magician since Houdini, Fanelli decides he must ditch the parlor tricks and go big. But his first attempt, being locked in a tin trash can, goes horribly wrong and he’s forced to reconsider his life path once again. The film employs a melange of visual styles and landscapes which cohere around the vibrant personality and old-time talents of Fanelli. -KA.
Director: Chris Fanelli. Cast: Chris Fanelli, Primo Berrettini.
Paulina lives and works in a small hotel in a northern Russian town with her friend Nadia when a mysterious guest arrives. “Rio,” directed by Zhenia Kazankina, is a quiet but vivid portrait of isolation that paints its wintry grey setting underneath pops of style and streaks of playfulness. (A po...
Lucinella, an openhearted 20-something, visits her dour sister, Lore, in L.A, and we see the weekend as a narrated montage, kinetic & full of spot-on details of how trips like this go. The first day, the younger sister, Lucinella, spends alone eating red velvet poppers and trying to act casua...
Wearing five GoPro cameras, a man attempts to visit every one of Trip Advisor’s “Top 315 Attractions in Miami'. Don’t say “I miss you.” Say “the content would have been better if you’d been in it.” That’s how Dylan (played by writer/director/camera platform Dylan Redford) begins trying to patch t...
