If Tacoma were a woman she would be a burlesque queen with a dark past and a heart of gold – no wonder Isaac Olsen cast her for his film noir detective thriller, Quiet Shoes. Olsen will screen the movie, which was released earlier this year, during Spaceworks Tacoma’s Trick Art Treat event on Thursday, Oct. 28, at 5:30. Get yourself downtown for some awesome cinema starring Dale Phillips and Kurt Kendall of the band, Girl Trouble; with a score by Kendall, Sam Olsen of Red Hex and Dick Rossetti of Twink the Wonder Kid.
Olsen’s company, Schnelluloid Film, Inc., was awarded a six-month Spaceworks residency at 1114 Pacific Ave. which enables him to continue work on a number of animated and live-action shorts, and to finish post-production on a new feature, I Hunger. The filmmaker describes I Hunger as a German Expressionistic tale, “the simple story of a wild creature/boy who lives in the German forest. Oh – and he eats people….” Olsen says that aside from the company of actors, he has worked in “monk-like” solitariness “on every aspect of the movie.” The ordeal has paid off: “It’s the best photography I’ve achieved thus far, and amazingly, has some first-class performances. Andre Mazloom, the only authentic German to be found….wrote all his own lines and monologues. Ordinary folks have been prodded and provoked into greatness.”
Shooting is completed and the movie is now being edited and expanded upon. “In the last few months I have been drawing and photographing cell-animated ‘forest spirits’ which appear throughout. Later this month, I will begin filming additional ‘spirits’ in a miniature water tank using fabric rod puppets. Meghan Lancaster, my Artspace mate, is helping me construct them.” It’s a far cry from film noir, and we can’t wait to see it.
The Quiet Shoes dvd, posters, tees and other Schnelluloid swag will be available for purchase at the Oct. 28 art event, at 1114 Pacific Ave. Information: www.schnelluloid.com