Courtesy Everett Collection
From May 7 to 11, Play-Doc will celebrate its twenty-first edition in Tui, the historic Galician city that hosts this independent festival, which for two decades has stood out for vindicating, discovering or rediscovering the work of independent, lesser known and marginal filmmakers, as well as important cult directors whose legacies have transformed the history of cinema.
In this edition the festival advances its programme with the announcement of two retrospectives dedicated to the American filmmakers Elaine May and Monte Hellman, two iconic figures of the New American Cinema in the 1960s and 1970s, whose work, although enormously influential, has remained in part inaccessible and rarely brought together.
Elaine May
Born in Philadelphia, United States, Elaine May (1932) began her career as a theater actress and comedian, later improvising on stage with Mike Nichols, with whom she created a classic and highly influential comedy duo. After writing several plays, May turned to film, becoming the only woman in the influential generation of what became known as New Hollywood. May debuted as a director in 1971 with A New Leaf, a black comedy starring Walter Matthau and the director herself, reminiscent of the classics of American screwball comedy but with a dark Hitchcockian touch. With a script by Neil Simon, May made The Heartbreak Kid in 1972, starring Charles Grodin and Cybill Shepherd. Another comedy with a classic spirit but with a bitter aftertaste that tells a story in which sentimental relationships are mixed with money in potentially dangerous ways.
After those two films satirizing American ideals about love, success and the self-deception required to achieve them, May delivered her roughest and most unusual film: Mikey and Nicky, a New York gangster movie centered on the complicated friendship between two characters played by Peter Falk and John Cassavetes, with a style that mimics that of the films directed by Cassavetes himself. Unlike her more commercial earlier films, Mikey and Nicky was unsuccessful upon release, a year and a half later than originally announced, and became a cult film years later.
Monte Hellman
Courtesy Everett Collection
Originally from Brooklyn, USA, Monte Hellman (1929-2021) was one of the first “students” of the so-called Roger Corman school, working for the producer from the late 1950s in different roles. In 1966 he directed two atypical westerns, one after the other and using the same film sets, far from the traditions of the genre, like The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind, and both produced by and starring a then little-known Jack Nicholson. Unlike the classic formulas of the Western, these two films had fragmentary narratives and were populated by characters trapped in uncertain destinies.
In 1971 he directed what is perhaps his most celebrated film: Two-Lane Blacktop, a road movie starring singer-songwriter James Taylor and musician Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. The film, which follows two young men in a car race across the United States, was commissioned by Universal Studios to take advantage of the “youth” trend generated by the success of Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969), but due to the more leisurely and existentialist tone put forth by Hellman, the film was not a success at the time and became a cult film over the years to come.
Another of the films to be seen in the retrospective is Cockfighter (1974). Starring Warren Oates, it focuses on the world of cockfighting to tell another story of outcasts, narrated in his characteristic sparing and distant style.
Although his filmography was neither extensive nor particularly successful at the box office, Hellman left a deep mark on independent cinema in the United States. In fact, his narrative style influenced directors such as Quentin Tarantino, whom he helped as executive producer and supervisor on the set of Reservoir Dogs.
The competition programmes will be announced in the coming weeks, as well as the rest of the focuses, retrospectives and special activities. Play-Doc also organizes seminars, master classes, live music concerts, expanded cinema sessions and art exhibitions, and has industry activities such as the professional training platform, project development and co-production forum VENTURA.
The call for entries to participate in the competition sections is open until April 7.