Young Orderly
Against the barren wintry backdrop of a psychiatric hospital, inpatients and authority figures drift through turgid psychological states. We meet the artist Jean and his lover Monica, patients of the facility, and several characters circling its periphery: a guard, an Episcopalian priest, and a church organist. Minimalizing dialogue and plot intricacy, Tregenza concedes only kernels of information, demanding that the viewer breathe dimensionality into his archetypes. Acting out primal instincts of lust, envy, fear, and love, subjects teeter vulnerably on the brink of sanity and insanity, freedom and repression in their attempts to navigate their existence.
Chip
Marcus is a kid on Manhattan's mean streets. He's turning 15, his father is dead, his mother is in prison for smuggling undocumented aliens. His grandmother is raising him. He has four close buddies who have a basement clubhouse; they shoplift and sell the wares to kids. One is moving toward selling drugs. Marcus wants to take a breather from the city and visit family in New Mexico. He also meets Melena, 14, a sweet kid who dreams of going to Alaska; her father is not just protective but angry and uncommunicative. The gang pressures Marcus to move up to burglary and car theft. He just wants to breathe open air. Can anything go right?
