Last Sunday, moviegoers were treated to three hours of cinema in 4070 Vilas Hall — only it wasn’t for a UW Cinematheque screening. “Micro-Wave Cinema,” the latest addition to Madison’s expanding slate of alternative programming, held a three-hour inaugural double feature courtesy of director Zach Weintraub.
According to its Facebook page, “Micro-Wave” promises to highlight “the most adventurous, provocative, and beautiful work being made by young American independent filmmakers,” and so far, so good. Weintraub, based out of Olympia, screened The International Sign for Choking and You Make Me Feel So Young, two of the filmmaker’s impeccably produced dramas.
Shot around the rain-soaked Washington area, You Make Me Feel So Young found Weintraub enlisting local talent; more impressive is the performance Weintraub coaxes out of first-time actor Justine Eister, the film’s lead. Despite opting for stark black and white visuals, Weintraub taps into complex relationships through his characters’ uncertainty in romance and aspirations, as he follows Justine opposite a visiting artist (Kymberly Walden) and her frustrated boyfriend (Weintraub).
In The International Sign for Choking, Weintraub milks unbelievable production values from his experience abroad in Nandan Rao’s gorgeous on location photography in Buenos Aires. Weintraub stars as a videographer in the midst of a creative rut on an overseas project. During a post-show Q&A, Weintraub revealed he cast past acquaintances, and even his host parent, in vital roles during production. Like You Make Me Feel So Young, the film is quiet and confined, and Weintraub uses a distinct style — long, static one- and two-shots and shallow depths of field — in granting genuine intimacy to his characters’ creative struggles.
Weintraub and “Micro-Wave” founder Brandon Colvin also discussed the importance of providing venues for lesser known filmmakers. The conversation then dovetailed into Weintraub’s ongoing distribution project, Simple Machine, which offers indie artists the chance to find alternative distribution and exhibition methods for their films. Using the networking of Simple Machine and Budge, a similar digital service, “Micro-Wave Cinema” seems like a promising start to bringing independent cinema to the Madison area.
- “Micro-Wave Cinema” is a FREE screening series. Its next event will be held on Sunday, February 9th at 7:00pm in 4070 Vilas Hall.