ORSON REHEARSED
Orson Welles’ heart has just stopped. We enter his mind in this moment, on the threshold between life and death. In the bardo Orson’s thoughts unspool as a stream of consciousness that loops back on itself, like a Möbius strip. Three avatars onstage in the theater of his mind are paired with three oneiric films within the film as he shuffles through his memories, loves, regrets, like a magician preparing for one last trick. Is he ready for what comes next?
9/10: LOVE BEFORE THE FALL
The myths of Orpheus and Charon are interwoven with the entirely sung story of four friends dining in an Italian bistro who are fated to perish the next morning in the attack on the Twin Towers. At meal’s end, through magical realism, the restaurant’s mysterious strolling violinist is revealed to be Charon, hand extended, awaiting payment. Complying, each reconciles with death, and departs to the sounds of the next morning’s busy signals and the calls of first responders.
I HEAR AMERICA SINGING
An aging Broadway composer experiencing an artistic and existential crisis aims to jumpstart a professional comeback by gathering his two best friends to rehearse a revised revival of the musical revue that originally launched his career twenty years prior. As the trio swaps songs under the pressure of an impending backer's audition they are hounded by a hostile documentary film crew. The film functions as a structural meta-narrative on the weight of aging, artistic compromise, and the unreliability of memory
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