WHAT DOESN’T FLOAT Directed by Luca Balser
Written by Shauna Fitzgerald
Pauline Chalamet, Larry Fessenden, Roger Howarth, Cindy De La Cruz
In theaters on September 22

“In What Doesn’t Float, director Luca Balser and writer Shauna Fitzgerald
set the stage with seven vignettes, each about the mistakes and heartaches
of various New Yorkers who can’t seem to make the right decision,
whether it’s the socially acceptable call or not…”
—Magan Robinson, MOVIEJAWN

“What Doesn’t Float is a wonderfully crafted series of stories
– each finding a different meaning to its place, to its character,
to its exposure of the life of this corner of the city, and what it means to be a part of it.
All the vignettes are strong, but highlights include one in which …
a seemingly insignificant moment between
Marco (Larry Fessenden) and the young girl (Chanel & Dior Umoh)
that turns both violent and compassionate.”
—Shelagh Rowan-Legg, SCREEN ANARCHY

Submarine Entertainment Secures Worldwide Sales Rights on ‘Crumb Catcher’ Ahead of Fantastic Fest (EXCLUSIVE)

By Brent Lang

Submarine Entertainment is picking up worldwide sales rights on Chris Skotchdopole’s feature directorial debut “Crumb Catcher.” The move comes just ahead of the darkly comic thriller’s Fantastic Festworld premiere.

Skotchdopole wrote, directed, edited, and produced the movie and Submarine Entertainment, a notable sales and production company, will launch sales out of the festival, which runs from Sept. 21 to Sept. 28 at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar in Austin, Texas. “Crumb Catcher” was described by Fantastic Fest programmer Anna Bogutskaya as a “chamber piece that melds extreme anxiety with the worst salesmanship imaginable.” The film follows a newlywed couple held captive by an entrepreneur desperate to finance his outlandish invention with a blackmail plot.

With ten years of experience working with Glass Eye Pix, the New York independent genre production outfit led by horror auteur Larry Fessenden, Skotchdopole has amassed numerous credits on several films, including working as the cinematographer on Fessenden’s “Depraved,” as co-producer on Jenn Wexler’s “The Ranger,” and associate producer on Robert Mockler’s “Like Me” and Jack Fessenden’s “Stray Bullets.” Prior to his feature debut, Skotchdopole wrote and directed the short “The Egg and the Hatchet,” which screened at the Oldenburg Film Festival and Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, among others. 

Fessenden and Garay also share story credits with Skotchdopole, and Adam Carboni shot the film.

Following the world premiere at Fantastic Fest, “Crumb Catcher” will screen at the Woodstock Film Festival and at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, with further festival engagements to be announced.  

Here’s the teaser trailer: 

Crumbcatcher

A crumbcatcher lets a waiter clean your table in one quick swipe, hence its nickname, the silent butler. But what if there was a crumbcatcher that caught more than just crumbs? And what if the not-so-silent obnoxious inventor of this device showed up unannounced late one evening, grumpy wife in tow, determined to prove his idea will revolutionize the restaurant industry?

Produced by indie legend Larry Fessenden, Crumbcatcher is rumored to be a wild ride full of unpleasant characters doing unpleasant things to one another. Which is one way of saying it sounds like it absolutely belongs at Fantastic Fest. – Dave Canfield

Read whole list at Screen Anarchy

A work is never finished, only abandoned:
Fessenden looking forward to abandoning BLACKOUT
after edit and mix tweaks following world premier at Fantasia Film Fest.

New cut will unspool at
Woodstock Film Festival, Brooklyn Horror, and Sitges overseas.
Check it!

Fessenden with longtime Glass Eye Pix collaborator Tom Efinger
after the mix 9/19/23

Fessenden with thespians Alex Hurt and Barbara Crampton
day one of principal photography 9/19/22

Glass Eye Pix productions BLACKOUT (Larry Fessenden) and CRUMB CATCHER (Chris Skotchdopole) unspool at the fest and GEP alumn Jenn Wexler presents her sophmore effort THE SACRIFICE GAME.

Check out the full lineup which includes a 40th anniversary screening of ANGST by Gerald Kargl, often sited as a favorite of depraved cinema by Fessenden.

2023 WOODSTOCK FILM FESTIVAL: A CONVERSATION WITH ART-HORROR AUTEUR LARRY FESSENDEN

What inspired you to choose a career in the film business, and what was your journey?

I always loved movies and monsters as a child. I was drawn to the arts as a kid, drawing pictures and writing stories when I was very young. I was an actor in grammar school and high school. I might have had small roles, but I always made an impression as a dragon or a one-legged pirate. As I grew up, I became aware that when you watch a movie, it is the camera that tells the story, and I started shooting S8mm as a teenager. I learned feature filmmaking with video because the tape stock was cheap. I am only tangentially in the film business even now, but I have been involved in various aspects of making and distributing many, many movies.

What was your most rewarding or the most challenging project to date?

I am proud of the filmmakers whose careers I have helped, like Kelly Reichardt, Ti West, Jack Fessenden, and many others. I am fond of my own films because they express my viewpoint of life, for better or worse. I have cherished memories working with actors and directors that I revere, like Adam Driver, Bill Murray, Jim Jarmusch and the incomparable Marty Scorsese. As for my most challenging project, every project, big and small, that I am involved with is a challenge. You try to bring your personal best to the work, and it doesn’t always hit.

What are your thoughts on technology and the changing landscape of the TV and film industry?

I am very bitter about the commodification of a medium I love. The studios have relinquished moviemaking to the streamers.

I dislike streaming, even though it is convenient. I grew up on the scarcity of access to movies; it made them special. They lived in the mind, imagination, posters, and stills from magazines and books. Movies mattered. The business mindset behind the streamers is craven; they don’t even let you watch the end credits on a movie you’ve just sat through. No time for reflection. They are training viewers to disdain the people who made the work and just gobble up the next dollop of content.

The TV execs tried to drop televising the cinematography and editing award at the Oscars, no respect for the craft, just celebrity gawking. But it is not just movies, of course. Technology and rampant capitalism in all aspects of life have amplified our narcissism, which leads inexorably to tribalism and strife.

What is one question you’re constantly asked or what’s the biggest misconception about what you do?

People often suggest I should “sell out” and go to Hollywood. That’s not something you just do. It is very hard to break into the film business, especially if you have an alternative perspective on the world. And anyway, I’m too old now, it’s a youngster’s game.

Can you put your finger on what makes a great Writer/Director and who inspires you?

I respond to directors who have a distinct visual style, a sense of realism even in fantastical contexts, and a commitment to resonant themes. But this could describe many directors that I don’t particularly revere, I suppose. I like Hitchcock, Kurosawa, Scorsese, Polanski, Kubrick, The Coen Brothers, and Herzog. It is a pretty traditional list for a cinephile of my generation. These were high priests when the cinema was a church.

What are you working on now that you’re excited about?

In fact, I am working on a few changes to BLACKOUT. When I finished it a month ago, I suspected there were two things I might want to revisit in the edit. I am allowing myself to go back in. I often do that between festival screenings and whatever distribution I might secure. And I am working on the sequel. Yes, you read that correctly.

If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

It’s a whimsical question that reveals my melancholy about life because I really would like a superpower to vanquish the bad guys and fix the world. In that way, I have never grown up.

Read the article at INSIDE + OUT

“Liberty Kid elevates that woeful genre, the 9/11 movie,
by keeping a ‘Wire’-worthy ear to the street talk of south Williamsburg
and maintaining a shrewd balance of the personal and the political…
an uncommonly acute, deftly played drama of the New York working class.”
— Nathan Lee THE VILLAGE VOICE

9/8/23 • 7:30PM • 6&B Garden (6th Street, Avenue B, NYC)
FREE ADMISSION
Q & A with M.M. SERRA and writer/director Phil Hartman to Follow

come revisit the post-apocalypse/pre-gentrification East Village
at this special screening of No Picnic in one of the actual locations in which it was filmed!

Shout Out to Phil Hartman, GEP pal, longtime supporter of the downtown arts scene as
investor (IMPACT ADDICT VIDEOS), actor (HABIT), director (EERIE), organizer (HOWL FEST),
presenter (TWO BOOTS VIDEO, PIONEER THEATER),
and pizzaiolo (TWO BOOTS PIZZA featuring the annual DEPRAVED PIZZA slice)