Nick Gomez

A group portrait of filmmakers attend the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. Featuring Matthew Harrison, Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, Todd Haynes, Greg Araki, Abel Ferrara, Atom Egoyan, James Gray, Robert Redford, Haskell Wexler, among many others. Co-directed by Amy Hobby. [Filmed in Pixelvision and blown-up to evocatively grainy 16mm.]

When the New York City police disrupt a big cocaine deal, the TV news reporters find John Falcone, a local mobster, nearby. They ask some tough questions, and Falcone decides he needs a public relations man to help burnish his image. He hires Todd Barrett, and he keeps Barrett in line with generous helpings of cocaine. Meanwhile, Falcone's unorthodox, violent, and sadistic methods get him cross-wise with Don Ricci, the boss. A mob war may break out. When Todd's wife is endangered, can the flack attack back at the racketeers?

THE RAKING tells the story of a group of college students who set out to debunk an urban legend in Joshua Tree, California for their anthropology thesis, only to find that they become part of the legend themselves.

This short film was packaged on video with Hartley's featurette "Surviving Desire." It affectionately examines the lives of a group of "young, middle-class, white, college-educated, unskilled, broke, drunk" Brooklynites who would love to make something of their lives -- assuming they can pay the rent first.