Filmmaker Roundtable: The Making of The Removals
May 28, 2020
This Episode
In the summer of 2015, Two Dollar Radio produced our second no-budget feature-length film, The Removals. Written and directed by Nicholas Rombes (The Absolution of Roberto Acestes Laing), starring Jeff Wood (The Glacier), Milly Sanders, Scott McClanahan (Crapalachia), with photography / soundtrack by Mike Shiflet, and producer / photography / editing by Eric Obenauf, The Removals is a paranoid thriller that follows two disenchanted members of a nefarious organization attempting to control the culture.
Join Rombes, Wood, Shiflet, and Obenauf as they discuss the making of the film and its implications for our current cultural moment. There will be a Q&A with the audience following their discussion.
"[The Removals] simultaneously occupies a number of bold artistic territories. It’s a speculative work about an underground organization revisiting and re-enacting moments from history to change society to their own end; it’s a paranoid thriller about members of that organization growing disenchanted with it; and it’s about the troubles that can come when you attempt to revisit the past. (In this film there are echoes of everything from Charlie Kaufman’s film Synecdoche, New York to Tom McCarthy’s novel Remainder.)
—Vol. 1 Brooklyn
Read more about the film The Removals here.
Check out the trailer and/or rent The Removals here on Vimeo.
TRAILER:
Nicholas Rombes is a professor of English in Detroit, Michigan, as well as a writer of fiction, screenplays, and essays. In 2016 he wrote and directed to film The Removals. He is author of The Absolution of Roberto Acestes Laing, Ramones from the 33 1/3 series, and the book 10/40/70. His writing has appeared in The Believer, Filmmaker Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, n+1, and The Rumpus. He is also a a contributing editor of Filmmaker Magazine.
Find out more here:
The Absolution of Roberto Acestes Laing book website
thehappinessengine.net
Twitter: @Requiem102
Active in the Ohio experimental music community since 1998, Mike Shiflet is a former member of Sword Heaven, Burning Star Core, and Noumena, and also ran the GMBY label until 2008. Utilizing guitar, laptop and analog devices, his solo work is a unique mix of noise, drone and melody. His most recent recordings for Type Records (Sufferers and Merciless) and Under the Spire (The Choir, The Army) received high praise from outlets such as NPR, Pitchfork, and The Wire. In addition to his solo work he is also guitarist for the drone doom band Asurya.
Find out more here:
mikeshiflet.bandcamp.com/music
Jeff Wood is an actor and writer from Ohio currently living in Berlin. He is a founding member of the experimental film/art group Rufus Corporation and a Wallabout Oyster Theatre Player. His 10-year collaboration with Eve Sussman and Rufus Corporation produced the works 89 Seconds at Alcazar; The Rape of the Sabine Women; whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir; and numerous international screenings including the MoMA, SFMOMA, The Smithsonian, The Whitney, and the Toronto, Berlin, Thessaloniki and Sundance Film Festivals. He was a 2014 Fellow in Screenwriting with the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Find out more here: wolvesdontbark.com
Twitter: @coopers_hawk
Vimeo: jwood
Eric Obenauf founded Two Dollar Radio with his wife, Eliza. His writing has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, The Millions, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Rumpus, Columbus Alive, and on The Billfold. In 2008, he was included in Publishers Weekly's '50 Under 40' list, spotlighting 50 individuals working in publishing under age 40 worth watching, and was one of five finalists in the magazine's 2016 'Star Watch' program. He has received the Venable Herndon Award for Excellence in Screenwriting. He enjoys playing competitive basketball on the weekends. He is the writer and director of the Two Dollar Radio film, I'm Not Patrick.
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