On Friday, March 4th, Matt Porterfield’s PUTTY HILL will enjoy its official Baltimore premiere at the Charles. Everybody in the tribe should go to the opening, even if you saw the film at the 2010 Maryland Film Festival, or maybe caught it in its globetrotting festival run. I saw the film at its NYC opening on February 18, and I intend to see it again at the Charles. Here’s why:

While Matt Porterfield speaks of “demystifying the process” of filmmaking through sharing the process with locals, non-professionals, and young people who otherwise would not have the access or a voice in moviemaking, Putty Hill itself is a mystery.

Mr. Porterfield, with a lot of help from his friends, spent over a year casting locals for a fully scripted movie called Metal Gods. They couldn’t get the money to shoot Metal Gods, but they did get a sweet Panasonic HPX-500 camera package through the IFP Emerging Filmmaker grant program. The equipment package came with a two-week limit, so the filmmakers had to come up with a new movie that could be shot in two weeks. They didn’t have a script for the new movie, so they shot it without one (Jordan Mintzer and Porterfield are credited with story, reportedly five pages in length).

For the female lead, Porterfield went outside the local non-professional casting pool for one non-non-professional: teenage singer/ songwriter Sky Ferreira. Thus armed, Porterfield, along with NYU colleagues (like DP Jeremy Saulnier), and local crew & production staff, jumped in. An assortment of angels and benefactors, from local restaurants and artists, to Kickstarter and Hopkins U, all contributed to making the production possible. Clearly, Matt Porterfield has an ability to inspire people to pull together to reach a common goal.

Putty Hill was selected by SXSW and the Berlin International Film Festival (among others). When this happens, a film is assured a wide range of reviews by professional critics. Though one of the trades was scathing, for the most part Putty Hill received good to glowing notices from the likes of Ebert and The New Yorker. The film was picked up by The Cinema Guild, a busy distributor, and is now enjoying a (limited) U.S. theatrical run.

So what’s the mystery? Putty Hill is literally dark, unhurried, anti-plot, bereft of incident or sensationalism, and arguably depressing (or maybe that’s just because I saw myself in it?) Putty Hill is observational and compositional, and almost never betrays a hint of movie-story character development. Yet it is magnetic, emotional, whole, and crafted to what feels like a rigorous aesthetic standard. Sure, it will polarize viewers & reviewers along the arty – popcorn axis, but the fact remains: the movie is in theaters, polarizing people! As any indie filmmaker will tell you, that’s huge.

Screenwriters and Directors are often terrified of boring the audience. They are compelled to rely on Incident: fights, gags, explosions, nudity, humiliations, terror, or whatever it takes. When I asked Mr. Porterfield about that, he said the film didn’t depend necessarily on narrative conflict. You have to sort out what’s real and what’s fiction, so it’s also a dialectic conflict. Sounds pretty cerebral, but don’t let it fool you. Mr. Porterfield feels, and shows a lot of love and respect for his subjects, the audience, the community, and himself. How he pulled it off may remain a mystery, but I think there are clues to what makes it work: he tells the story that’s in between the lines, the part that Hollywood leaves out, the part we never get to see on screen. The part that’s us.

-David Warfield

FRIDAY March 4 – METRO GALLERY
The PUTTY HILL opening night gala party is at Metro Gallery, March 4, with performances by Dustin Wong, Co La—the new exotic music of Matt Papich (Ecstatic Sunshine, Melters Delight, Big People), Roomrunner (Denny Bowen et al.), Ivy Barkakati (High Time), and Rick RA (Food for Animals). Metro Gallery, 1700 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21201, themetrogallery.net – Doors 9pm, 21+, free with 3/4 PUTTY HILL ticket stub, $5 for general public.

SATURDAY, March 5
See exclusive behind-the-scenes PUTTY HILL at the Windup Space the afternoon of Saturday 3/5, with DJ Secret Weapon Dave and Mickey Free on the turntables. Meet the Carroll Park skate/BMX crew featured in the film.

Meet Director Matt Porterfield and chat about PUTTY HILL at PAZO restaurant at a PUTTY HILL / PAZO premiere party on Sunday 3/6, 5–7 pm. A PUTTY HILL ticket stub from the Charles Theatre is required for attendance.

Check back to puttyhillmovie.com for updates on opening weekend events.

For PUTTY HILL screening times and to buy tickets, go to thecharles.com