Forum of Independents - Competition 2013 / Stand Clear of the Closing Doors / USA 2013
Thirteen-year-old Ricky is an autistic child living with his immigrant parents in New York. One day he gets lost in the subway and so begins his odyssey through a city which is totally alien to his way of thinking. His anxious family begin to fear the worst when a hurricane approaches the metropolis and the boy is still nowhere to be found.
The drama of an immigrant Mexican family set in the New York borough of Queens. Careworn mother Mariana lives with her eternally- -absent husband, her daughter, and her 13-year-old autistic son Ricky. On his way home from school one day Ricky gets lost in the subway, where he remains helpless and trapped beneath a metropolis that never sleeps. During his frightening odyssey, the boy gets to know the varied inhabitants of New York. The family sets out in search of him but their chances are slim, especially when destructive hurricane Sandy is bearing down on the city with incalculable menace. Director Sam Fleischner’s first independent offering boasts uncommonly credible performances from the central characters, whose story unfolds in a culturally diverse urban environment. The picture avoids excessive plucking at the heartstrings, yet it remains a deeply-felt although sober take on the topic of autism.
103 min / Color, HD CAM
International premiere
Director Sam Fleischner
/ Screenplay Rose Lichter-Marck, Micah Bloomberg
/ Dir. of Photography Adam Jandrup, Ethan Palmer
/ Editor Talia Barrett
/ Producer Andrew Neel, Veronica Nickel
/ Production SeeThink Films, M ss ng P eces
/ Cast Andrea Suarez Paz, Jesus Sanchez Velez, Azul Zorrilla
/ Contact SeeThink Films
www: www.standclearclosingdoors.com
Sam Fleischner grew up in an artistic family in Providence, Rhode Island. He graduated with honors in film from Wesleyan University (2006), a school that has produced many top names in contemporary American film. After moving to New York he worked for a time as a projectionist at Anthology Film Archives, an institution advocating for the preservation and exhibition of avant-garde and experimental films. An interest in such movies is evident in his own work, which often thwarts the traditional aesthetic canon. His experimental documentary Below the Brain (2011), an experience in itself that records Brooklyn’s West Indian Day Parade, has thus far attracted the greatest attention. His codirected feature debut, Wah Do Dem (2009), about a boy who heads to Jamaica alone, was presented at the Los Angeles festival. The element of sudden isolation is also the plot basis of his second feature Stand Clear of the Closing Doors.
SeeThink Films
16 Broadway, Brooklyn, 11249, New York
United States of America
Phone: +1 212 347 469 1310
E-mail: [email protected]
Sam Fleischner
Film Director
Andrea Suarez
Actress
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