New Yorkers Fucking Hate Things about the City They Secretly Love in Timely Short Film
- Above: Joaquin holding the camera as Lalou holds the boom
Biscuit Filmworks has released short film 'Fuck I Love NY', taking a look at the small things locally despised. Mat Jerrett sent Biscuit Filmworks’ MD Rupert Reynolds-Maclean the idea for the short film - an insider’s ode to New York City during quarantine with very a specific New York attitude. Rupert sent it to Biscuit’s New York directing team, Joaquin & Lalou, who signed on as soon as they read the first line, “Fuck Delancey traffic.”
“No truer words have ever been written”, said Lalou, who has lived a block from Delancey for over half of her life, and who has a confirmed affection for the F-bomb. But it wasn’t only the insiders look that made this project great. Anyone who knows and loves New York knows that it is New Yorkers who make the City. It is for this reason that the humorous expression, full of grit, seemed to be the right message to be sending out about NYC during these challenging times.
The film was shot over a few days in June, with the two person crew of Joaquin & Lalou. Joaquin, who is also the cinematographer, filmed with his Canon c500, and Lalou operated the boom mic. They found people through a combination of Instagram, their long-time Real People casting director, Vitamin Enriched, and street casting. “It was important to us to hit the five boroughs, and also to film people in their own neighbourhoods - both because of Quarantine, but also so that they were speaking about their New York.”
Joaquin & Lalou both recovered from Covid-19 and have tested positive for the antibodies, so they were able to drive to the different locations together. Mat chose to join them when he could, via his bicycle - sometimes traveling as far as 40 miles to the different neighbourhoods.
The original idea for the film was conceived during the first phase of quarantine, when New York was practically a ghost town. When filming began, the City was starting to open up more, and heading to phase two, which changed the tone of the film to a certain degree. The original idea was a kind of call and response - the first half being New Yorkers complaining about the city, and the second half expressions of affection for the things they missed during lockdown. But as the filming went along, they realised that all the complaining was actually a New Yorker’s form of affection.
"The act of complaining to another New Yorker is an act of bonding, because of the shared suffering, so we realised that that was the expression we wanted to go with. New Yorkers really do complain about all of this stuff, but they know New York wouldn’t be New York without it. As Avi (Oron), our editor, and long-time denizen of Soho, described walking the empty streets of Soho, which used to drive him crazy with all the tourists, and thinking 'Fuck, I miss the tourists'.”
Time Based Arts and String and Tins worked over the weekend to finish the film for a targeted Monday 29th June launch. Coincidentally, and sadly, Milton Glaser, the artist who designed the famous 'I ❤️ NY' logo, died over the weekend, adding poignancy to the timing of this film.
