Five Feet High and Rising

The most acclaimed short film of 2000. Using non-professional actors, this New York-based film takes a cinema verite' inspired look at a sexual innocence and discovery.

I am very proud to be able to present the "calling card" film for director Peter Sollett, who went on to direct the latest Hollywood teen-hit feature Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. But it all started with Five Feet High and Rising, a 26-minute short, and can be seen as the film that started it all for Sollett. Although he wrote and directed this film from the heart without being fully aware of what a hit short film could do for a director back in 2000 (arguably the last moment in time where a short film playing a film festival could directly lead to funding for your first feature), the film went on to win several awards, and play Cannes, Aspen Shortfest, SXSW, and Sundance, where it was picked up and shown regularly on the Sundance Channel (where I first caught it).

After this short, he expanded his idea into a feature, but used the same leads in the short as lead actors in the feature (the great Victor Razuk, and the great Judy Marte). That feature was called Raising Victor Vargas, and is an absolute revelation of a movie. Most independent and Hollywood movie dialogue will sound artificial after one viewing of Raising Victor Vargas. His process in these two films still seems a bit of a mystery, at least when it comes to finding out what it actually is. Maybe an interview here and there, but nothing much. Which makes this, and the feature that followed it, even more special.

Five Feet High and Rising



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Raising Victor Vargas

Throwback Sundays this week spotlights the feature length debut of Peter Sollett. Sollett made a short film called Five Feet High and Rising that opened at Sundance. He returned there a year or two later with this feature, same characters (with a few more), same story, same approach, same genius.

"Raising Victor Vargas is an achingly lovely movie about the denizens of a Lower East Side Puerto Rican neighbourhood made by a Caucasian director (Sollett) who's big on subverting expectations. The novice cast members improvise their dialogue with unself-conscious ease, cinematographer Tim Orr makes a tenement building look warm and inviting, and the ending is so low key as to induce goose pimples. Humane until it feels revolutionary."

http://www.filmfreakcentral.net/toptens/top102003.htm

See the trailer below, then do yourself a favor and rent or buy this film at once:



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