MONO FEO
MIDNIGHT HOMEMOVIES 2
BEHIND MIDNIGHT HOMEMOVIES 2
In December 2022, Cora and I would rent the venue at Visart Video to showcase our recently made films. We invited our friends to also showcase their work and thus MIDNIGHT HOMEMOVIES was born. We garnered a small audience of spectators, many being people involved in the local scene and others still strangers. We saw the potential for using this avenue to highlight the DIY nature of our work and those around us too.
In 2023, we worked together again to make the event happen, however, we sought to really bring the community into it. This resulted in collaborating with the Elvita Exhibit, a DIY gallery in the garage of a local artist, Sade Reimer. An open call was then launched seeking minute long video submissions embracing the "midnight" aesthetic. The challenge was now to find a space to screen the films.
In 2019 when I took on the project of Industrial Hellscapes, one of the documented buildings was the infamous CINEMA BLUE. It would become clear to me then that MIDNIGHT HOMEMOVIES 2 had found its location.
Why Cinema Blue? It was the only remaining adult theater in Charlotte, and in a city where every abandoned building is destroyed, it was a miracle it still existed. Cinema Blue played a pivotal role in my curiosity as a kid, resulting in its feature in Industrial Hellscapes, but its history to the city was even more important. Every night, during its era of infamy, the parking lot would be filled with cars and people all chattering and ready to watch the next film. The gay Odyssey club next door would welcome artists from all over and the whole area would come alive at night. At its core, midnight movies celebrate the experimental, queer, horror and DIY aesthetic of art in film. There was no better place to celebrate the work of the local scene than here. For one last night, we would give CINEMA BLUE back its life.
MIDNIGHT HOMEMOVIES 2 would take form in a guerrilla film screening on December 16, 2023.
Watch Here: MIDNIGHT HOMEMOVIES 2
Watch Here: MIDNIGHT HOMEMOVIES
Photography by Ezequiel Antonio (@zqlantonio)