Dan Sallitt’s Fourteen (2019) is a beautifully realized story of a friendship between two young women. Mara and Jo, in their twenties, have been close friends since middle school. Jo, the more outgoing figure, is a social worker who runs through a series of brief but intense relationships. Mara, a less splashy personality than Jo, bounces among teacher aide jobs while trying to land a position in elementary education, and writes fiction in her spare time. She too has a transient romantic life, though she seems to settle down after meeting Adam, a mild-mannered software developer. It soon becomes apparent that Jo, despite her intellectual gifts, is unreliable in her professional life, losing and acquiring jobs at a troubling rate. Substance abuse may be responsible for Jo’s instability… but some observers suspect a deeper problem. Over the course of a decade, the more stable Mara sometimes tries to help, sometimes backs away to preserve herself, but never leaves behind her powerful childhood connection with Jo.

3.58GB | 1h 34m | 1916×1076 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/2015440D5A6E0D7/Fourteen.2020.1080p.WEB-DL.DD2.0.H.264-EVO.mkv

Language(s):English
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The post Dan Sallitt – Fourteen (2019) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Over the course of a decade, a young woman becomes increasingly dysfunctional due to undiagnosed mental illness, or perhaps to drugs, while her more stable friend sometimes tries to help, sometimes backs away to preserve herself.

1.27GB | 1h 34m | 1280×720 | mkv

https://nitroflare.com/view/6BFD7E0BB870852/Fourteen.2019.Dan.Sallitt.720p.WEB.x264-gooz.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:None

The post Dan Sallitt – Fourteen (2019) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

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The movie is produced by EZTV, a production company and exhibition venue founded in Los Angeles in 1979 by John Dorr and other people (including Michael J. Masucci, who plays the cinema manager in Polly Perverse). How did you come in contact with them? How did your project fit into their structure?

EZTV began exhibiting videos in 1983, the year I became a full-time critic. I knew John’s name from my auteurist friends in L.A., and I made a point of covering his screenings as often as possible. John knew that I wanted to make films, and at one point he offered me the use of the EZTV facilities and equipment. In 1985, when I was thinking about quitting my critic job, EZTV moved to a new, much bigger space in New Orleans Square in West Hollywood. It looked like a big, unfinished movie studio when I first saw it, and it put ideas into my head. Soon I left the L.A. Reader and started to work on Polly.

In those days EZTV had very little structure, and John made it possible for all kinds of different artists to work there. We had to share the 3/4″ equipment and give it up whenever EZTV had a paying customer. John never even asked me for money, though the company needed it badly. My films were not completely unlike John’s, but he gave the same support to many others who had nothing whatsoever in common with his approach to cinema.

[…]

In which contexts has Polly Perverse Strikes Again been screened? More generally, what were the odds of such a film being distributed in the U.S. at that time?

Polly has barely been shown at all. There were four poorly attended screenings at EZTV in 1986. Then nothing until a single screening at Anthology Film Archives in New York in 2013, as part of a retrospective of my work. And it screened at another retrospective in Madrid in June 2019. That’s it.

We didn’t really think too much about wider distribution: we assumed that the technical quality of the video would prevent that. In retrospect, though, 1986 was right in the middle of the emergence of the American independent cinema as a commercially viable movement. Polly wasn’t in a position to ride that wave, but at least the wave was happening.

561MB | 1h 38mn | 640×480 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/C8041DCEF4AC653/Polly_Perverse_Strikes_Again_Dan_Sallitt.mkv

Language:English
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The post Dan Sallitt – Polly Perverse Strikes Again! (1986) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

A couple in their thirties marry after years of friendship, and go on their honeymoon without having had a physical relationship. Over the course of their honeymoon they encounter sexual difficulties and conflict owed to their heightened self-consciousness and overbearing expectations for how things should be. Feeling that the marriage is hanging by a thread, the couple works desperately towards a solution.

1.36GB | 1h 29mn | 708×531 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/E63E9C26AEDBFA6/Honeymoon.1998.DVD.AC3.2.0.x264-SaL.mkv

Language:English
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The post Dan Sallitt – Honeymoon (1998) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

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Sallitt has written repeatedly that his favorite director is Howard Hawks. All the Ships at Sea shows the influence of Hawks. The story telling is vigorous, the characters are rich, and the logically constructed story development is character-centered, showing vivid interactions between the principal performers. Both sisters are get-up-and-go types in the Hawks tradition. The older sister spends the entire film, taking every action she can to help the younger sister, who is in trouble. She also tries to help other people, in the course of the film. The younger sister is less functional, being in the grip of a religious cult. But the film stresses the younger sister’s willingness to take personal action in accordance with her religious convictions. She is not passive or a victim; she is a person who stands up for what she thinks is right.

Hawks spent most of his career on genre films. There is nothing genre-oriented about All the Ships at Sea, which is a realistic drama about modern life and religion. All the Ships at Sea is dedicated to the memory of Maurice Pialat, and the film reflects the tradition of modern French filmmakers who make realistic dramas stemming from Hawksian traditions, but who use realism rather than genre as their base.

1.17GB | 1h 17mn | 853×480 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/71D8F7408CF1246/Dan_Sallitt_-_(2004)_All_the_Ships_at_Sea.mkv

Language:English
Subtitles:None

The post Dan Sallitt – All the Ships at Sea (2004) first appeared on Cinema of the World.