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The Evil Eyes

Bobby Abate

2011 00:19:28 United StatesEnglishB&W and ColorStereo16:9HD video

Description

An homage to the death of the soap opera, The Evil Eyes is a 1960's era story of a grandmother faced with her mortality, a mother in mid-life crisis, and a son realizing his sexuality - a dysfunctional family whose unspoken angst manifests in the latest episode of their beloved supernatural soap opera, Before Dawn.

Tina Sloan, 26-year veteran of Guiding Light, stars as the soap's the death-cursed matriarch whose daughter slowly vanishes into thin air and grandson channels the family's fate using his crystal ball. On the other side of the screen, a woman is so desperate for her family's attention she figures the only way to get it is to be on television.

Cinematographer Bradford Young evokes a dreamlike atmosphere using monochromatic studio cameras of the era. Filming took place at St. Cecilia's Convent in Brooklyn, New York. In contrast, the colorful 1960's living room was shot separately in high definition on location in suburban New Jersey.

Written and Directed by Bobby Abate.  Produced by Bobby Abate and Ben Howe.

Note: This title is intended by the artist to be viewed in High Definition. While DVD format is available to enable accessibility, VDB recommends presentation on Blu-ray or HD digital file.

About Bobby Abate

Bobby Abate (Brooklyn, NY) makes films and videos that fuse nostalgia, psychodrama, and spectacle with a distinctly modern resonance. His recent work, the occult themed Love Rose (2010) and Gossip (2011) premiered at the New York Film Festival, and his 1960’s era supernatural drama The Evil Eyes (2011) won \aut\FILM Award for Best LGBT Film at the 50th Ann Arbor Film Festival. Other exhibitions and screenings include the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Moscow International Film Festival, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, San Francisco Cinematheque, and the ICA in London and Palm Beach. Critics celebrated his underground feature Certain Women, co-directed with Peggy Ahwesh; and MoMA called the film “as sustained and as successful as Todd Haynes’ acclaimed Far From Heaven,” with an “almost opposite approach."

Film Comment Magazine named Bobby one of the top 25 emerging Filmmakers for the 21st Century  Among other accolades, he is also the recipient of the Princess Grace Award. He is currently working on his first mainstream feature Dressed in Black with Damsels in Distress co-producer Charlie Dibe