FILMMAKING
FOUND : MISSING (2014)
A Film by Jay McRoy
After an actress (Kourtney Kostroski) is found dead in a dilapidated apartment, an obsessed director (Nathaniel Drake Carlson) and the deceased actress' grieving sister (Holly Munson) embark upon their own unique investigations, ultimately seeking refuge in an isolated rest area located off of a congested Midwestern interstate. As the film's narrative disintegrates around them, questions emerge regarding the limits of human knowledge and its relation to ideas of transfiguration.
digital video / color and b&w/ sound / 68 minutes
ABANDON (2010)
A Film by Jay McRoy
Nathaniel Drake Carlson is Ben and Amy Kushner is Amy, roommates struggling to find solace in the wake of traumatic pasts informed, respectively, by ambiguous indiscretions and tragic loss. When the re-emergence of old friends and the mounting pressures of family obligations impinge upon their daily lives, they soon discover that loneliness is not synonymous with isolation, and that true abandonment comes in many forms. Directed by Jay McRoy (Acts of Contrition, 2009), Abandon explores the relationship between human memory and personal history. In the process, Abandon reveals that the “stubbornly persistent illusions” which Albert Einstein once posited as separating “the past, present, and future” are far more precarious and easily shattered than we would care to imagine.
digital video / color / sound / 100 minutes
ACTS OF CONTRITION (2009)
A Film by Jay McRoy
Starring Nathaniel Drake Carlson and Deanna Fabianno, Acts of Contrition is a loosely-plotted digital video feature about the pain of regret and the fears that arise from the anticipation of loneliness and/or abandonment. Arranged around carefully orchestrated tonal shifts and aesthetic allusions, Acts of Contrition follows a young academic couple as they struggle to negotiate the precarious emotional terrain that results from the all-too-human folly of, in the words of Oscar Wilde, “spoil[ing] every romance by trying to make it last forever.
digital video / color / sound / 76 minutes