Yesterday, a clip for Charlie Birns' Slamdance entry, the drama Human Affairs, premiered over at The Playlist. We can now share that clip from Birns' feature film debut with you below and it is very much worth checking out; such a beautiful and intimate montage of images.
Lucinda and Sidney, a successful, young couple in the New York City theatre world, hire a French woman, Genevieve, to carry their child. Three months pregnant and beginning to have second thoughts, Genevieve travels to New York to meet them and spend a long weekend together. During an unexpectedly intimate experience, all three must confront their own boundaries and vulnerabilities as they develop profound connections that culminate in a startling emotional moment.
Human Affairs stars Dominic Fumusa, Kerry Condon, David Harbour, and Julie Sokolowski. It will have its World Premiere at Slamdance on Saturday, January 20th at 1:45 pm at the Ballroom, Treasure Mountain Inn.
And proving that patience is a virtue we held off posting this sooner today so that Screen Anarchy could share with you two quotes from Birns about his film and some stills from the production. You are welcome.
What is the experience of carrying someone else’s child? And what is it like to have someone else carry yours? Pregnancy and parenthood are profoundly emotional experiences, in whatever form they take. As a subject matter, surrogacy was the ideal lens through which to explore our basic need for human connection and our contemporary approaches to making a life. Human Affairs is about our fundamental yet increasingly challenging need to find deep connection to one another.
For the second time, I was fortunate to collaborate with cinematographer Sean Price Williams (Good Time, Queen of Earth, Heaven Knows What), whose evocative camerawork conveys inner atmospheres unexpressed in language. We filmed in an wide array of formats: three distinct HD cameras, iPhone, 8mm film stock, and 35mm photographs, hoping this might bring us closer to the panoramic experience of life, now and in memory.