WINDOW ON YOUR PRESENT
dir. Cinqué Lee, 1988
60 mins. United States.
In English.
FRIDAY, MAY 2 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 10 – 5 PM followed by Q+A with Cinque Lee (ONE NIGHT ONLY!)
TUESDAY, MAY 13 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, MAY 26 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 31 – 7:30 PM
15 years after being released on DVD (and almost 40 years after it was shot), artist Cinqué Lee’s WINDOW ON YOUR PRESENT returns to the flaming S – this time, with Cinqué Lee in person for Q+A.
Collaborating with Jim Jarmusch on his directorial debut, Lee – who appeared in Jarmusch’s MYSTERY TRAIN and served as both cowriter and coproducer on his brother Spike’s CROOKLYN – gives us an unsettling dreamscape taking place in the rubble and ruins of a post-apocalyptic Brooklyn neighborhood.
WINDOW ON YOUR PRESENT creates a morbid and lonely atmosphere seen through the eyes of two protagonists, Europa and Lever. Surrounded around a colorless existence, the dialogue-free film shows us horrors of neglect, abuse, and dangerous lonesome through the eyes of this young couple while they search for something special outside of their dreary world.
Filmed on the cusp of the No Wave movement specific to New York filmmakers expanding outside of a small screening room on St. Marks Place, Lee leans into gritty and guerilla style filmmaking that movement is really known for. Between the visuals from cinematographer Leslie Mentel (SHE’S GOTTA HAVE IT), the voiceover by Maria Pieneres, and the incredible jazz score by Spike and Cinqué’s father Bill Lee, this collaboration of artists makes WINDOW ON YOUR PRESENT feel less like a movie and moreso a collaborative work of art.
“Genetically much closer to maudit French literature than to mainstream American cinema, Cinqué Lee’s visually haunting 1980s post-apocalyptic narrative tone-poem should be regarded as a true underground classic!” – Jim Jarmusch