Director Matt Fifer and author Sheldon D. Brown created and starred in Cicada, a gorgeously ragged model of their very own lives as younger homosexual males navigating queerness, race, faith and the persistence of reminiscence in Brooklyn. As an exploration of popping out, Cicada performs like two males interviewing each other about their lives on their strategy to each other.
Cicada is a part of deadCenter Movie Pageant’s ongoing Continuum collection of genre-defiant movies screening on-line within the months main as much as the twenty first annual competition. It would display screen via Sunday via deadcenterfilm.org. Included within the $10 ticket is a Q&A that includes Hannah Royce of the Oklahoma Metropolis Satisfaction Alliance and deadCenter’s new Curator of Queer Programming, Laron Chapman (You Folks).
Music and movie
by George Lang
Sponsored by True Sky Credit score Union
Fifer’s Ben grew up in a liberal dwelling in Lengthy Island, the place his extraordinarily chill mom (Sandra Bauleo) and best-friend sister (Jasmine Grimaldi) function an unwavering assist group. However even with such an accepting and loving household, Ben is haunted by reminiscences of sexual abuse.
Ben meets Sam (Brown) on the discount bin at The Strand, New York’s most honored bookstore. Sam is Black, comes from a spiritual household and is struggling to depart the closet as he offers with the expectations of masculinity. Every man is enduring completely different levels within the technique of popping out, with Ben not too long ago ending his heterosexual courting life and furtively partaking in same-sex encounters with randos and associates and Sam retaining issues principally underneath wraps.
Cicada incorporates components of each wry comedy and true pathos, and it steadily resembles a deeply felt documentary because it takes Ben and Sam via a interval of questioning and confrontation, all set towards the “golden hour” atmospherics of a New York Metropolis summer time. Every man has each bodily and psychological wounds. By means of most of Cicada, Ben is preventing off phantom pains that trace at his previous as an abused youngster whereas the trial of former Pennsylvania State College coach Jerry Sandusky performs out within the background.
As a first-time characteristic director, Fifer pulls some robust expertise into Cicada’s supporting roles. Second Metropolis and 30 Rock’s Scott Adsit performs Ben’s physician, and Saturday Night time Reside featured performer Bowen Yang exhibits up for a split-second as considered one of Ben’s one-nighters.
However probably the most recognizable — and jarring — efficiency is by Cobie Smulders, who Fifer met when he was a manufacturing assistant on The Avengers. Smulders’ comedian tone as Ben’s therapist means that she wandered in from a extra standard romantic comedy. Whereas she just isn’t fully distracting, her efficiency lacks the subtlety displayed in most of Cicada.
However as a result of Cicada is so grounded in Fifer and Brown’s private experiences and is additional strengthened by each males’s naturalistic performances, no quantity of tonal shifting can cut back the movie’s energy. Because it ought to, Cicada treats being true to oneself and to your associate is much extra vital than becoming society or household expectations. It rings true.
Go to deadcenterfilm.org.
And, this!
Whether or not he’s taking part in a pungent cocktail of jazz and people with the Low Swingin’ Chariots or performing solo guitar, Kyle Reid is an area grasp of conventional Americana. Take a look at Reid in solo efficiency from 5:30 to eight p.m. Friday as a part of Music First, a collection of socially distanced performances at The Jones Meeting, 901 W Sheridan Ave. Tickets are free, however registration is required. Go to thejonesassembly.com.
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