1Q: Tell us a little about the origins of HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE, from writing to financing.
The core concept of the film–that it would be built around an inscrutably shady character who makes his meager living by working out of his vehicle–came out of a conversation I overheard somewhere. The details of the conversation elude me given that this took place nearly four years ago now, but one of the “conversationalists” was telling the other about an experience he’d had with a weird computer repairman who would only meet his customers in liquor store parking lots in a beat-up old van. Something about that scenario suggested to me the potential for some rather dark and awkward humor. That being the kind of humor I’m attracted to, I stole the idea and started trying to flesh it out with my own details.
SCHIERON: “This gently paced comedy, indistinctly set in Chattanooga, Tennessee, feels like a marriage between Richard Linklater’s early work and an inversion of Mumblecore (trading emotional vagueness and verbal clarity for emotional clarity and totally incomplete sentences). However what first time feature director Jarrod Whaley (an acquaintance of this critic) has done here is distinct; a hyper-specific take on regional cinema, a subset of film that is itself already hyper-specific. The rhythms are often dysplastic, the characters dyspeptic and while the title invokes a well-known quote by Sartre, the existential angle of the film takes such a subtle and semi-literal tack on the matter you hardly know you’re thinking philosophically.”
“Single, unemployed and forever scrambling for money and love, Morty specializes in finding new ways to make his friends feel uncomfortable. Whether being talked into posing for an eccentric artist’s photo project or vainly trying to romance an ex-girlfriend with lines like “You’re beautiful when you’re indignant,” he seems to have taken Sartre’s titular adage to heart. But is he really Chattanooga’s biggest loser, or a forlorn psychiatrist who just can’t seem to take his own advice? That’s the question at the heart of Jarrod Whaley’s deadpan treat. Charting the different relationships within a group of friends with lucid emotion and dry wit, the film manages to be both a wise comedy and a look at the characters’ often painful need for human connection.”
— Fernando Croce, Cinequest Program Guide
Deflated, my entry in the 60-second cell-phone-movie contest currently underway thanks to Cinequest and SanDisk. Four finalists chosen from the initial twenty entries will be screened at Cinequest 20 this Feb./March in San Jose.
I’m still not sure how the public voting is supposed to work, so for the time being simply rate the film at YouTube and/or leave your comments.
Hell Is Other People will premiere at the 20th Cinequest Film Festival on Saturday, February 27th at 4:15 PM. The exact screening venue has not yet been announced. CQ tickets go on sale this Wednesday at cinequest.org.
Please note that there will be a second screening on Wednesday, March 3 at 7:00 PM.
Do drop by the event invitation on Facebook.
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What is it about financial poverty that so often impoverishes the inner lives of those who suffer from it? Does the relationship even operate in this fashion, or does emotional poverty precede—even serve as a primary cause of, in some cases—the pecuniary variety? ... [This] is a private story whose movements could only be written by one man holding one camera.
»Read more...Don’t get me wrong; I love Chattanooga. ... I have learned to make large things from small nothings. My resolve has been permanently strengthened. I have been taught to know what I want and to aim only for that[.]
»Read more...Jarrod Whaley is a Chattanooga, TN filmmaker who has, to this point, worked primarily with digital video. Whaley graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a double-major B.A. in English and French. He sits on the Board of Directors of the Shaking Ray Levi Society, a non-profit arts organization which has been bringing non-traditional creative work (such as improvised music, video, film, and performance arts) to Chattanooga, TN and elsewhere for over 20 years. In 2005, Whaley was one of several individuals appointed to the Chattanooga Film Commission by Mayor Ron Littlefield.
