Light Industry, a venue in Brooklyn, recently screened Talking to Strangers, written and directed by Rob Tregenza, Director of the Cinema Program. This 1988 film, shot in Baltimore, Maryland, shows nine different 10 minute segments in a continuous take on a single roll of 35mm film. The intricacy and innovative originality of these shots has obtained widespread international acclaim including recent press in The New Yorker. The film also received nomination by the IFP/West “Spirit” Awards in 1990 in two categories: Best First Director and Best Cinematography.
Richard Brody of The New Yorker says “The sheer and overt virtuosity and sinuosity of the filmmaking—nine shots, done with a craning, roving, tracking 35mm camera, each running an entire thousand-foot reel of film (and each, according to Tregenza’s website, was done only once, with no second take)—is all the more remarkable in relation to the “story,” to the experience, activity, and ambition of its protagonist. It’s the kind of movie that’s all the more amazing when it’s compared with the modern-classic subject it tackles and the nearly overfamiliar character at its center, a sensitive young man in the city.”