Matt Porterfield’s Hamilton (MFF 2006) has arguably become the most acclaimed Baltimore art-house film in decades; The New Yorker’s Richard Brody named it one of the top 20 films of the last decade, and hometown hero John Waters proclaimed it “the real thing” in his Artforum Top Ten of 2006 list. Naturally, Porterfield’s second feature film is an exciting event for Baltimore’s film community – and this is it, a poignant and exploratory drama that both confirms and expands upon Hamilton’s refined artistic pleasures.

 

The film’s central thread comes from a group of friends and family preparing for the wake of Cory, a Baltimore man whose life was taken by a heroin overdose in an abandoned house. As characters reconnect and mourn, many are interviewed by an off-screen voice about who they are and how they live, bringing the narrative into points of intersection with documentary and experimental film. Skate parks, living-room tattoo parlors, paint-gun melees, and karaoke bars provide the visually stunning backdrop for a chorus of scarred but dignified voices calling out for better lives. As with Hamilton, neighborhood is another integral thread, weaving us through uniquely Baltimorean rural spaces on the edges of our urban experience.

 

Impeccably shot by Jeremy Saulnier (cinematographer of Hamilton and director of MFF 2007’s Murder Party), Putty Hill has already wowed audiences at prestigious festivals on the world stage, such as Berlin International, Buenos Aires Int’l Independent, and SXSW. Now it’s Baltimore’s turn to take in this captivating showcase of abundant homegrown talents.  (Eric Allen Hatch)

Matt Porterfield studied film at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and teaches screenwriting and production in the Film & Media Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University. His first feature, Hamilton, was released theatrically in 2006. Metal Gods, his second feature script, was selected to participate in the Emerging Narrative Program at IFP’s Independent Film Week, where the screenplay won the Panasonic Digital Filmmaking Grand Prize. Putty Hill is his second feature film.