Valeriano and Duke | Atlanta, Day One (2009)

ATL, filmmakers Kris Valeriano and John Duke spent this summer making a special gift just for you, an experimental short film, Atlanta, Day One. There’s a one-night-only screening going down at Graveyard Tavern on August 24th at 8PM of this thoughtful new film crafted in our hometown.

I was fortunate to have a private screening of the work in progress, currently in its last round at the editing table, and my, my, my what a special surprise these guys have for you. Atlanta, Day One is an intimate film reflective on humanity and our relationship with the environment. Actor/co-writer Valeriano introduces this film as one being a “completely different and personal experience” for each viewer, and it’s no joke; especially not one for local ATLiens. It is a powerfully subjective experience where imagery of the Atlanta landscape will inspire reflection on your own pool of memories and interactions with the city.

Shot on an old 1960s Swiss Bolex H-16, the visual treatment of the 16mm film would have been held in high regard by the film theorist Béla Balázs. Essential components of the aesthetics include the face, landscape, and objects. The main character is a Chaplinesque character or rather more like Federico Fellini’s Gelsomina – a type of mime whose facial expressions are incapable of holding back emotion. The film mashes up different locations within the ATL perimeter, crafting a new spatial conception of the city. In this regard, the film reminds me of the 1998 German film, Run Lola Run, directed by Tom Tykwer. In this film, the main character Lola traverses the city of Berlin suturing disjointed locations into one seemingly continuous space. Atlanta, Day One has this similar effect.

Valeriano and Duke | Atlanta, Day One (2009)

♥ Following, creators Valeriano and Duke took the time to answer a few of my questions.

What is the synopsis of the film?
The film can best be described as a tone poem, where image and music are closely bonded and there is no spoken dialog.  A solitary, central character (Valeriano) awakens into a vision of a post-Apocalyptic Atlanta.  His movements through the varied locations reveal a hidden world, and his expressive acting style conjures the silent-era to provide a haunting perspective on our human environment.

What was your intent for creating this film?
It began as a summer project for us to collaborate in art, but as any artist can attest to, the art began to take a life of its own, pulling us in directions we’d never anticipated.  A perfect, or seemingly imperfect, combination of influences in our lives, love for this city and its people, and true collaboration in creativity and creation brought this film from its inception as a jarring, music-driven, abstract tragedy to become a soul-searching piece that not only allowed the character (along with actor & director) to journey through this world of simultaneous beauty, solace, and decay but also to tie it back to Atlanta in social commentary and symbolism through philosophy, psychology, sociology, etc.

Why do you call it “Atlanta, Day One”?
[Kris jokingly wonders the same thing]
Just as the film takes on many different meanings depending on a person’s past experiences or characteristic intricacies, Duke said it best as a capturing of the first day following a ‘cataclysmic’ event or, more poignantly, of man’s descent.

The film takes place all around Atlanta; in what locations did you shoot?
Every location was within the perimeter (I-285).  Major locations included abandoned projects, bridges and railroads across town, cityscapes in downtown Atlanta, warehouses, and a hidden quarry.  And, of course, we pulled a lot of locations from our alma mater, Emory University.  We’ve taken places that are geographically independent of one another and melded them as contiguous neighbors to the point that we ourselves forget they were on polar opposite side of the city.

Over how many days did you shoot?
We began with the concept and test reels in June and went daily, be it to review converted footage or writing stages, through a few baker’s dozen of reels through August, filming in the height of summer and in a full Dior tuxedo, mind you.

What is your background and how did you guys come to collaborate together?
We met our freshmen year at Emory, formed a group of great, life friends, studied abroad in Oxford University together, and have worked on a few short film projects in the past for amusement and mockery of film festival criteria.

Director John Duke, an anachronous hippie and musician, is a grad student at NYU, Tisch School of the Arts, for film studies and is a professional film-editor by trade.

Kris V, growing up with an infatuation in the arts (visual, music, performance, and martial), majored in English and Creative Writing and is taking grad classes in Public Health at Emory.

As co-writers, we are proud to consider this our freshman, breakout portfolio piece.

What are your plans for Atlanta, Day One and what is next?
Next stop, submit to film festivals. It’s best to hit the top tier film festivals (Tribeca, Sundance, Cannes, etc) and get invited to lower tier festivals.  We’ll submit in the short experimental film or short narrative film categories and cross our fingers.

And you can be certain that we’ll try and take the short film category at the Atlanta Film Festival, which is one of our main goals, as we want a film to actually win this festival that has something, if not everything, to do with Atlanta – especially since it is so underrepresented in artistic discourse.

We are currently in the planning stages for the next projects and we aspire to travel the globe using film to document and shed light on humanitarian need across cultures, developed or otherwise.

♥ You can get a sneak peak, a onetime premiere, at GRAVEYARD TAVERN, Monday, August 24th, 2009, at 8PM. Both Duke and V will be there, drinks in hand, to toast to a first of many.