Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets.
Traditionally an im ...
comedy short film by director Matthew Harrison, which won ''Best Comedy'' at the 1988
New York Film Festival Downtown
New York Film Festival Downtown was a New York-based film festival founded by Tessa Hughes-Freeland and Ela Troyano in 1984.
Known for its independent and "positively avante-garde" programming,Thomasin Lansing, "Film in Limbo", ''East Village E ...
and the ''Mystic Fire Independent Film Award'' at the 1989
Ann Arbor Film Festival
The Ann Arbor Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Ann Arbor in the U.S. state of Michigan. Established in 1963, it is the fourth-oldest film festival in North America (after the Yorkton Film Festival, 1947; Columbus International Film ...
.
Rave-Ups singer Michael Kaniecki (who also wrote the score) and theater director Bob McGrath play former roommates Todd and Martin who, in the early 1980s, briefly led overlapping lives in ''Apartment Eight''. Shot on S8mm film in monthly installments over a one-year period, most of the scenes in ''Apartment Eight'' were done as single takes in a cramped Clinton street tenement kitchen, as Todd and Martin re-enact some of the episodes of their downwardly mobile, girlfriend-sharing past.
Cast
*Michael Kaniecki as Martin
*Bob McGrath as Todd
Festivals and showcases
''Apartment Eight'' was first screened publicly on July 10, 1987, in the East Village at the RAPP arts center by
Film Crash
Film Crash is a California-based annual film festival and screenplay competition, programming independent, animated, experimental, low-budget and underground films. The programmers award prizes.
History
In 1985 film director Matthew Harrison l ...
. The film was further programmed at Kino Eiszeit Berlin, Space 2B Gas Station, ''Old and New Masters of Super 8'' at the
Anthology Film Archives
Anthology Film Archives is an international center for the preservation, study, and exhibition of film and video, with a particular focus on independent, experimental, and avant-garde cinema.ICA in London.
In early 2005, New York's
New Museum of Contemporary Art
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side.
History
The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Scho ...
included ''Apartment Eight'' in their exhibit ''East Village USA''. Curatorial Fellow Emily Rothschild wrote "(''Apartment Eight's'') inclusion is absolutely crucial to a thorough understanding of the East Village scene." and Flavorpill called the film "derelict"."East Village USA Films", ''Flavorpill'', 2/2005