STINKING HEAVEN
Stinking Heaven
Nathan Silver, 2015
Catalog No.: FTF-059
Length, 70 minutes
Married couple Jim and Lucy (Keith Poulson, Deragh Campbell) run a commune in the early 90's for sober living out of their suburban New Jersey home. The motley members eat, bathe and work together selling homemade "health tea" out of their van. Although there's constant bickering and plenty of fires to be put out, Jim and Lucy have managed to establish a haven for these outcasts. But the harmony is interrupted when Ann (Hannah Gross), a recovering addict and the ex-lover of one housemate, arrives. Ann's insidious presence sends the members spiraling out of control, resulting in paranoia, drug relapse and eventually death.
Directed by Nathan Silver
Story by Nathan Silver and Jack Dunphy
Produced by Rachel Wolther
Cinematography by Adam Ginsberg
Edited by Stephen Gurewitz
Composed by Paul Grimstad
Starring: Hannah Gross, Keith Poulson, Deragh Cambell, Eleonore Hendricks, Tallie Medel, Henri Douvry, Jay Giampietro, Jason Grisell, Eileen Kearney, Larry Novak, Eleanore Pienta, Carl Kranz, Diane Lanyi and Julie Marcus
Festivals: Rotterdam International Film Festival, BAMCinemafest, Maryland Film Festival, Oak Cliff Film Festival and more
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PRESS
"A lo-fi, high-volatility psychodrama. Ricochets with raw, mercurial responses."
-Melissa Anderson, The Village Voice
"Sinewy. Like some lost entry from a golden age of tabloid news, Mr. Silver’s movie is a strange brew."
-Nicolas Rapold, The New York Times
"Filming with vintage video equipment, Silver makes the story’s agonies reflect the tone of its era; his densely textured images have many planes of action, which he parses with pans and zooms, revealing the volatile bonds of a group on the verge of combustion as well as the howling horrors of unremitting solitude."
-Richard Brody, The New Yorker
"Marvelous. Maddening. A plangent black comedy about the escalating hysteria in a disintegrating rehab commune."
-Ray Pride, New City
"Stinking Heaven achieves greatness on its own terms."
-Nick Allen, RogerEbert.com
"The visual and emotional equivalent of curdled milk: yellow-tinted, clumpy, and queasy. More unpleasant than amusing. There's a horror film in here somewhere, with the creepy synth score and the recurrent close-ups of twisting, blemished faces, but Silver wisely demurs: the stench of spiritual decay is disturbing enough."
-Leah Pickett, Chicago Reader
"Compelling. Furiously combative."
- Guy Lodge, Variety
"Stinking Heaven possesses a hazy, documentary-like realism."
-Michael McWay, Hammer to Nail
"As in the work of John Cassavetes, where the dramatic exorcism of personal trauma helps create a dialogue on the relationship between performance and pain, Silver's increasingly complex films imagine society as a shared space fraught with potential complications, one where inner turmoil finds ample room to fester and develop."
-Jesse Cataldo, Slant
"Brimming with a putrid effervescence and an ensemble cast willing to dig deep into the filth of life,
Stinking Heaven further confirms Silver's talent as a great conductor of chaos."
- Ben Umstead, Twitch Film