Culture & Community | East Rock | film festival | Arts & Culture | Film & Video | Spruce Coffee
Photos contributed by New Haven-based filmmaker Josh Stasko and his wife, Bridget.
“Was there a moment during filming or editing where you were like, ‘Yo, I love what I’m doing?'”
The question, from first-time filmmaker Woubalem Tezeta, hung in the air.
“When it was all over,” said Antonio Perry, drawing laughs. He was also a first-time filmmaker, taking questions on his short film, “Corkscrew.” “I watched it back and I was like, creation is really cool.”
On Tuesday evening, Spruce Coffee hosted its inaugural “Hang Out Film Fest,” organized by New Haven-based filmmaker Josh Stasko. The event brought together roughly 50 New Haven residents, including filmmakers, music artists, and writers who were presenting their works to an audience for the very first time.
“Artists in New Haven are all quite different,” Stasko said. “There is a wide variety of both styles and subject matter. I think it's really dependent on each artist, and I think there can be a lot of beauty and camaraderie in that.”
That camaraderie was on full display as the festival got underway. Attendees arrived bundled up from the windy cold outside, and quickly formed a line to order teas and coffees. Spruce Coffee co-owner A.J. Perez and his partner C.J. DiPasquale scurried behind the counter, working furiously to wrap up orders.
Photos contributed by New Haven-based filmmaker Josh Stasko and his wife, Bridget.
As the projector came to life and the lights went down, Perez reminded everyone to come up to the counter for their drinks, as he would not be calling out orders during the screenings.
“I’ve been at film festivals where they had to soundproof a broken window with a pizza box,” recalled Jay Miles, a New Haven-based video producer, after the event. “This was very different.”
All ten movies showcased that night were original, entertaining, and labors of love. There was, for instance, a surreal music video featuring local artist WEAREBISON singing in a swimming pool as inflatable donuts floated by. Or a horror short about Swiss Cheese Woman, a ghost who haunts Connecticut’s shoreline. Or a film about a box in the attic, combining nostalgia and Ethiopian Orthodox spirituality.
As each played, audience members sat rapt with attention. After each screening, filmmakers took questions and revealed insights into their process, like how they held their camera steady while riding on the back of a moped—that tidbit came from journalist and videographer Lindsay Skedgell—or shared a scene with a restless poodle (treats, a trick that filmmaker Zach Fox learned for his short film “Boots To Legs”).
“Hopefully in the future we will come together more and collaborate on projects, and bring our different styles and visions to bring a real richness to the projects that are coming out of New Haven,” Stasko said when reflecting on the number of different styles.
Certainly that evening, creatives mingled and exchanged contacts; Stasko also put up a QR code by the projection screen to join a New Haven filmmaking directory. While New Haven has festivals and collaboratives like the 48 Hour Film Project, artists tend to be siloed, he said.
“When I moved here, I started reaching out to people on Facebook groups and on Linkedin. We’d get together, and I met a lot of really awesome people,” he recalled. “But a lot of them didn't know each other.”
Many, too, find it difficult to enter festivals that have high entry fees. Eamon Linehan, a professional videographer who worked on the noir detective short, “Boots to Legs" about a heinous murder and an even more heinous fashion crime, observed that no-fee festivals like Hang Out matter. He pointed to New Haven’s 2022 Cultural Equity Plan and how the city could better resource its local artists.
“The city can do more, but [the Plan] is still very new,” he said. “Events like this can help get the ball rolling and call attention to what our artists need.”
Perez, whose coffee shop frequently partners with organizations like Trans Haven, echoed the sentiment. “I’d like [Spruce Coffee] to be a convergence place for the arts. I think the biggest issue facing the arts community is finding a safe space to gather, where everyone is welcome, and people aren’t trying to gouge you for money.”
That evening, Spruce Coffee indeed seemed like a convergence place for diverse and unique voices. And it is set to be so again. Lovers of movies and New Haven talent will be able to attend the next iteration of Hang Out Film Fest in a few short months when it returns, hopefully, as a quarterly event. So keep your eyes peeled, and your popcorn buttered