Feature trailer for Blank City.
Before there was HD there was Super 8. Before Independent film there was Underground Cinema. And before New York there was…well, New York. Once upon a pre-Facebook time, before creative communities became virtual and viral, cultural movements were firmly grounded in geography. And the undisputed center of American – some would say international – art and film was New York City. In particular, downtown Manhattan in the late 1970’s and 80’s was the anchor of vanguard filmmaking. Blank City tells the long-overdue tale of the motley crew of renegade filmmakers that emerged from an economically bankrupt and dangerous period of New York History. It’s a fascinating look at the way this misfit cinema used the deserted, bombed-out Lower East Side landscapes to craft daring works that would go on to profoundly influence Independent Film today. Unlike the much-celebrated punk music scene, this era’s thrilling and confrontational underground film movement has never before been chronicled.