It’s a hit!
The darkly comedic adaptation of a classic “Twilight Zone” episode that two Brooklynites shot in Bay Ridge is burning up the festival circuit.
“A Box Came To Brooklyn” won “Best Comedic Short” at the Manhattan Film Festival in June. Next it’s headed to the Chain NYC Festival in Queens, where it’s one of a handful of films that will get not one, but two screenings. The flick was so nice they had to show it twice, the festival organizer said.
“It’s an excellent movie,” said festival director Kirk Gostkowski. “What [the director] is playing with — that sci-fi feel and realistic setting and the black and white film — I think it’s a really cool film, and it fit well thematically in two blocks.”
Gostkowski is showing the film during a block of science-fiction movies and later during a block of flicks produced by New Yorkers.
Park Sloper Jason Cusato and Ridgite Anthony Devito — both life-long Brooklynites — adapted the short from the “Twilight Zone” episode “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” exchanging the original’s alien invasion motif and Red Scare subtext for more contemporary boogie men — terrorists and gentrifiers.
Cusato shot the short on Madeline Court — a narrow, private block in Bay Ridge with classic, two-story, Tudor-style homes.
The Queens film festival will be the movie’s second. It is also competing in a festival in New Jersey later this year.
Festivals are often vehicles for filmmakers to garner financial backing to turn shorts into feature-length films, but Cusato said he’s not looking to expand “A Box Came To Brooklyn” — though he may revisit some other “Twilight Zone” episodes.
“The movie is perfect as a short, but using the “Twilight Zone” as a vehicle or other shorts is definitely something I’m mulling over,” he said.
In the meantime, Cusato is finishing a Brooklyn-themed homage to the silent-cinema genre of “city symphonies” — pre-talkie documentaries that chronicled daily life on city streets and were shot to accompany symphonic music. The new project will present a visual tour of the borough through the eyes of creative natives, Cusato said.
“It’s shots of Brooklyn from sunrise to sunset through the eyes of Brooklynites — filmmakers born and raised in Brooklyn,” he said.
