|
Event
ORCHARD VALE - 14th Chicago Underground Film Festival Opening Night Film
ORCHARD VALE
Tim Kinsella
Feature 100:00 Video 2007
The Chicago Underground Film Festival is proud to present the World Premiere of ORCHARD VALE, the first feature film from Chicago writer/director/musician Tim Kinsella. ORCHARD VALE is a dystopian family drama, set in a failed state in an unspecified near future. The film tells the story about five people in the near future living together in the ruins of contemporary American suburbia. The infrastructures of modern convenience have collapsed and the culture has descended into anarchy. Small groups band together to survive.
Cyan Walker stars as Sophie, a 15-year-old girl who supports her father Gus and her brother Archie, along with Archies best friend Harry and his sister Sabine. Only quiet, unassuming Sophie is capable of venturing out into the larger world to barter with roving tribes for food and goods. Ambiguous militias and black market entrepreneurs are too much of a threat for the others to leave their small apartment. Days pass with slow dread, interrupted only by occasional outbursts of giddiness or pouncing on each other without warning.
Besides providing material support, Sophie keeps the bunch afloat emotionally and psychologically. Her days are whiled away in service for the others. She keeps her only joys, her gerbil and her journal, entirely to herself.
The pressures of maintaining the wellbeing and health of her family are too much for Sophie. As exhaustion overtakes her, she realizes her hopefulness is all she ever had to offer. Once the cracks begin to appear in that shield, how will she survive, let alone help the others? As one would expect in the first film by Kinsella, music, sound and incantatory dialogue are key to the aural landscape and the inner turmoil of characters who must escape into obsessions after being abandoned by civilization.
ORCHARD VALE raises more questions than it can possibly answer. Much of the story is told in between the moments other movies would have probably shown to tell the same story. This is done to invite the viewer to become an active participant, hopefully prompting the audience to expand upon the questions it raises. In a way, it might be like Planet of the Apes without the apes and in a different way like a zombie movie without the zombies. Tim Kinsella
|
|
 |
LocationChopin Theater
1543 W. Division
Chicago, IL 60622
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: No |
| Wheelchair Accessible: No |
|
Contact
|
