ReBirth Cinema presents “Addicted To Oilies:” A Cortlan McManus project

This film was shot on St. Mark’s in the East Village in December 2003 during a blizzard, or as we say in NYC, a Nor-easternor. The old ReBirth Cinema studios were located on E 7th Street, so this was my territory and it was undergoing the last major changes before becoming the party scene in the process of losing much of East Village artistic spirit. Filmmakers can be strange creatures, no, as this short story will share. Addicted to Oilies was done on somewhat of a dare. Is analogue film truly more durable than digital technologies? I was getting ready to head over to Munich to pick up an Aaton S16mm and a Nagra IS from Paco Joan, the cinematographer on many of Herzog’s most acclaimed works from the 1970s. I wanted to test the technology and see if a film camera could handle minus degree cold and wet weather (I should have been more caring of the actors but what is a diabolical director going to do hehe). My trip to Munich would coincide with a very long layover in both London and Ireland visiting family. While doing research for the trip and getting a lowdown on some UK slang, I came across an old British term used for cigarettes: oilies. One day I myself happened to stumble into a bodega, one of the few that carried du Maurier cigarettes so I purchased some ~ at the time, a woman I was seeing only smoked these French Canadian smokes. While in the store, a recent addict to the new wave of prevalent heroin use downtown, a junkie aggressively went for my cigarettes. I …
Video Rating: 5 / 5