Wish You Were Here

December 10, 2019

On November 20th, I was flown to Miami to cover the Borscht Film Festival, a celebration devoted to short films. Borscht is a non-profit, artist-run production company founded in 2010. I appreciated being flown to a film festival by artists, because I know I couldn’t fly artists to my own exhibitions.

I knew I was in Miami when I saw mustached young men in brightly colored shirts, then felt old and Northeastern which bummed me out. Borscht isn’t like other festivals, in part because there aren't any awards. There’s no sense of competition. The reason it doesn’t occur yearly is because each film in the festival, for the most part, is funded or commissioned by Borscht. It is truly collective. Directors act in actor’s films and writers lend editors Juuls. I was there as a "journalist" to document it all.

I put the word "journalist" in quotes because I’m not one, but here we go.

Text and photos courtesy of Brad Phillips

I have many friends and loved ones in or from Miami, and part of my pitch to office was that I wanted to write about my experience hanging out with the filmmakers, going to their parties and riding with 18 young people while smoking weed and dancing in the stretch pink Hummer that transported us to the main screening. I’m doing it now. When we poured out of the hotboxed outrageousness of our ride, instead of impressing the people we thought would be standing outside, we instead bewildered some security cards. Everyone was already in the theater. I brought in a box of calamari from Garcia’s, and some fried chicken.

On the day of a different screening, my Hummer companions—now joined by what felt like a gaggle of foreign correspondents—were driven in a deluxe black minibus to Bayside Marketplace, to be loaded onto three boats operated by Thriller Miami Speedboat Adventures. Each boat was brightly painted with the words “Thriller Miami”. These murderously fast cigarette boats chased each other around the ocean, jumped over wakes, and delivered on their promise, which was to thrill. Our driver was named Brian and looked exactly how someone who did his job should. Brian was bursting with charisma, ravenous for speed, and told us he enjoyed woodworking. Music played very loudly, most of it in Spanish and terribly danceable. Despite the intense wind people managed to use lighters, and as we disembarked, Brian thanked us for leaving behind that "sweet smell".

Just as with the Hummer, the Thriller was a first for me. It was extraordinarily fun. It felt like artists helping each other relax during what could potentially be a nerve-wracking time. These photographs of my Hummer and Thriller experiences show what I cannot tell. “Show don’t tell” is a maxim in filmmaking.

A major part of Borscht’s mission is the documentation of a "real Miami". Funding is almost entirely allocated for local filmmakers, specifically people of color, members of the LGBTQ community and first generation Americans (children of immigrants). Miami is one of the most overly depicted cities in film and television yet has some the highest disparities in wealth per capita in the United States. The Miami of Scarface and CSI is not the Miami I've seen. It’s a city in perpetual flux, forever craning its head above the water of hyper-gentrification. But it’s also a city with chill beaches and local spots and dead malls, leant to the arts community by MANA real estate properties as artist studios that serve as dance clubs. It’s a city that supports local artists and the arts generally in a way that seems rare. The films made by these Miamians (which I will discuss soon), are not stories about running drugs, gunfights and pastel eroto-topias. They are personal, geographically realist, funny and poignant.

Part of what made many of these films so beautiful was the sincere motivation to tell a true story about a mostly fictionalized city and it’s often miscast citizens. The morning after my late arrival, I ate breakfast and showed up late to the first screening at, bizarrely to me, a Scottish FreeMason temple. When we arrived all the seats were taken, so I sat on the floor and pulled out a small notebook and pen I’d bought to take notes. Scribbling on the paper in the dark, I felt like a sort of "performative journalist". The highlight of the night was a film called JOKER GANG, by Billy Linker and Ben Carey. This film is about a man who tattooed his face to look like the Joker from Batman. Although he claims (inexplicably) to have undergone this mutilation to ameliorate the intense sadness he felt when his ex-girlfriend aborted their baby, it quickly becomes clear that Joker305 is just another person trapped in the obsessive delusion that Instagram fame equals money.

The Joker is obviously unwell. He remains steadfast in the wake of unrelenting harassment during his live Instagram videos, which are prominently featured in the film. An Instagram Batman is shown arriving at the Joker’s home to fight him, only to be sucker-punched before he’s able to exit his Acura. The Joker meets a stripper who also wants to be famous on Instagram. They do a photo shoot. He stalks her. He posts a video toting an AK-47 while wearing only diapers. The narrative slow dives into the Joker’s broken heart. Towards the end, he appears to try taking his life using antibiotics. His live video ‘haters’ goad him on. He stops recording.

The films screened on the following day were all done by members of Bisque Corp, a younger iteration of Borscht that sprung from their fellowship program, coordinated by Trevor Bazile, a filmmaker and saxophonist whose own short film, Art Blakey Self Portrait, was good, eliciting laughs in tears in just a minute. Before the films were screened, Lucas Leyvas, one of Borscht’s founders, explained that when the non-profit was established in 2010, they vowed to never work with anyone over thirty. Since most of the original gang are now in their thirties, Bisque Corp was created to prevent the scene from becoming geriatric.

Most of Bisque’s members are fellows or interns. They in some way help Borscht, who in return helps them back. There were a few noticeable differences in the films made by those in their twenties and those in their thirties. Besides the preponderance of social media images and techniques seen in the Bisque Corp films—things like emojis, memes, and entire shorts that depict only what transpires on a laptop screen—there was an unusual number of films shot using GoPro cameras.

I wondered what this meant ontologically for those born in the nineties who’ve never known a world undocumented, clicked, liked and shared. The GoPro as a camera technique seemed to imply one of two things. It could either be solipsistic, in that nothing exists for these filmmakers unless it can be verified by their field of vision, or it could be wholly self-negating as if these same people can only qualify their existence by verifying they live in the landscape they capture.

Here are some working cuts from the Bisque screening that stood out.

The Five-Year-Old Teacher (Kiki's Class) by Luis Fernando Medellin. This very short film simply depicts a young girl teaching stuffed animals "sight words", or prepositions. The girl is adorable as are the dolls are seen absorbing knowledge in close-ups. Out of context, it could look like an excerpt from Sesame Street. There is no subtextual irony, or really anything out of the ordinary, except its own unordinariness. I enjoyed the confusion.

In A Lesson About Love, Harley Shaw documents seven minutes inside of a spy store, which she films wearing hidden cameras on her body. It’s a good one-liner of a film, and one-liners are important. The protagonist is never seen, only seen being seen. On her first visit, she asks the salesperson mundane questions while capturing him unawares on tape. On her second visit, she gets busted by a different guy at the counter who threatens to press charges against her. The rest of the film takes place on iMessage, where Shaw tries to talk her way out of being charged.

Dear Maria, Lena Redford, 2019

In Dear Maria, Lena Redford manages to successfully convey sadness, comedy, appealing visuals and some heartbreak in under four minutes. Tragedy and comedy are best friends in good art, and Redford is at home with both. Almost the entire film shows what’s transpiring on Redford’s laptop screen. There are other shots of her lazily preparing to move out of her apartment recorded with either an iPhone or GoPro. Redford is writing a letter to her landlady, Maria, using a template, to inform her that she’ll be decamping from Los Angeles for Miami. She is giving notice. While she talks aloud, she modifies the text, until she’s writing Maria a personal letter describing what’s been going on with her, and why she’s moving to Florida. Redford speaks in a satisfyingly blase voice about her life. Redford tells Maria out loud that she’ll be “moving out tomorrow, which is cool, cause that is soon.”

Her one-sided conversation with Maria is sweet, and also reads like Redford is trying to encourage herself about how easily she can clean up the apartment and move out. She tells Maria she’s moving to Miami because that’s where her brother lives, and not Scottsdale, where her father lives, apparently so he can receive treatment for what seems to be a serious illness that’s never revealed.

Redford is very funny, her voice is funny, what she documents and how she does it is funny. The offhand remarks about her father add a nice undertone of sadness that doesn’t feel sappy, just real. In one brief shot, she’s shown putting a fidget spinner into her pocket, and this somehow feels important.

Hoy!, Pedro Bello, 2019

Hoy! is a very confusing film in a way that feels positive. Bello, playing himself, appears at the beginning as a man who keeps falling up and getting down. The style of the film is obscure videogamesque. Bello is harassed and encouraged by a strange purple man who looks like a genie and calls him both a jerk and a friend. At some point, Bello is ordered by a second-rate X-men/Transformers type character to take part in a production of King Arthur, where he’s meant to play a tree. As in Redford’s film, a lot of things are described as ‘cool’, even when they aren’t. Bello’s character is cute, has Band-Aids on his face, and seems both chill and confused. I can’t say I understood the story I watched, or that there even was one, but Bello has a great slapstick style, and many times while watching his film I laughed, which is positive.

It was the night we poured our pink Hummer spectacle onto the empty red carpet of the Adrienne Arsht Centre that I saw the films I liked most. Happily, to me, there is a store in Miami called Sib-Bling Jewellers. I wanted to mention this but had no reason until I saw Emergency Action Plan by Dylan Redford, brother to Lena.

Emergency Action Plan, Dylan Redford, 2019

Emergency Action Plan is bookended by two segments where Redford is being interviewed about childhood memories. In the first, he’s in Grade 5 and has been chosen to by his principal to be a victim in a school-wide earthquake drill. Redford has an unrequited crush on a girl in his class named MacKenzie. He describes how a bell goes off at 11 A.M., at which point he is taken to the library, covered in fake blood, and told that he’s been crushed to death by a fallen bookcase. He tells his interviewer that he fantasized about his death would garner MacKenzie’s attention. In the second childhood flashback, Redford describes a fantasy where, after having been killed by the bookshelf, he walks back to class to find a note on his desk from MacKenzie which reads, “I’m glad you’re alive”.

After reminiscing about MacKenzie, Redford, sitting at a table in an unremarkable shirt is asked about an email he received on September 10, 2017. He describes having gotten an email at work asking him to prepare an Emergency Action Plan for an Active Shooter scenario. The young boy killed by a bookshelf is now spurred by memory to prepare as best as he can to be shot in his office, because as says, “I have zero confidence I would survive an active shooter attack. If anything I would be the first person nailed.”

Redford is a very good actor (appearing in other films), and while watching his film, I realized I was witnessing for the first time the creative aftermath born by a generation of kids drilled daily to prepare for a bloodbath. Redford’s character is very enthusiastic about taking up his company’s directive to prepare for violence. He watches ‘hundreds’ of active shooter drill videos on YouTube. He googles “what kind of guns do active shooters use”, then purchases those guns (for self-defense). He buys striking dummies, bulletproof vests, and hidden cameras. Through his enthusiastic effort to remain safe and do what his company asks of him, Redford unwittingly becomes flagged as a potential active shooter due to his search and purchase history. In the end, Redford envisions himself shot to death by a SWAT team, who’ve now thwarted one active shooter attack by eliminating an overly enthusiastic, highly neurotic office employee. Emergency Action Plan is very funny, but is also an intelligent satirical analysis of American gun frenzy and perpetual surveillance.

I Cannot State my Position, Kayla Delacerda, 2019

I Cannot State My Position is a surgical gem of a film that autopsies mansplaining. Delacerda’s film is atypical in that it’s shot on a Sony HandyCam, and consists of an irritating young man explaining to Delacerda why she cannot and will not be able to make good art using a Sony HandyCam. Interspersed between beautiful low-fi shots of sunsets and approaching trains, an obnoxious, teenaged seeming white boy interrupts Delacerda constantly, telling her that what she’s recording just can’t be art. His unbearable admonitions are the soundtrack to mournful images of birds and sky. While being discouraged unrelentingly, Delacerda attempts to defend herself, only to be told by her friend, with a finger pointed, to "let me finish my thought". His thoughts about what Delacerda can’t do, never finish. “Ok, Kayla, it’s not like 1929—anybody can record anything, anything can be recorded, Twitter exists....” Sage words about Twitter (?).

Delacerda’s friend insists that to make art, she needs to capture the moment. She says she is. He says she’s not doing it the right way. His issue seems to be that her equipment is too ‘basic’, which she explains is all she can afford. That it’s a white boy telling her she’s ‘capturing the moment’ with the wrong equipment is telling. I felt a palpable sense of discomfort listening to and watching Delacerda be talked down to. Ironically, her ‘advisor’ asks her to turn the camera away from him, as it makes him uncomfortable. Towards the end, he says that he better not end up being in the video. In making that conversation her film, Delacerda eviscerates her mansplainer, and captures the moment perfectly, creating a beautiful piece of art that is simple (not because the camera is simple) in its exposition of what women have to put up with if they want to talk to men about their artwork.

Why Did You Look Back, Cristine Brache, 2019

Why Did You Look Back is, like many other films I saw, autobiographical. This is normal. Brache’s film felt different, in that it also felt very film-ic (in part because it was shot on film), in a way that implied the beginning of a larger story, while still managing to function perfectly as a short film. From the striking title card to the soundtrack and color and cinematography, Brache’s film felt confident from frame to frame. As you hope for with good writing, there wasn’t a shot or line that felt expendable. All of the cast are actors.

In the first shot, a sad teenage girl exits her home to the sound of dramatic Latin music that felt reminiscent of a showdown scene from a Western film. Once she gets into her aunt’s car, the high drama subsides, and melancholy sets in. The film tells the story of a young girl named Soledad, who’s appropriately bummed out, and the attempts by her maternal family members to help her feel better by way of a Santeria ritual. In the car with her aunt, Soledad, who knows she’s being taken to participate in a ritual and seems ambivalent about it, is harangued by her aunt for not wearing lipstick, is reminded that her youth is fleeting and that she needs to dress more like a woman. Her depression seems more practically local than existential, and there is a sad irony in being driven to a place meant to heal you while being actively belittled by your healer.

Arriving at her grandmother’s house to begin the ritual, Soledad is immediately asked if she’s gained weight. The actor who plays Soledad is an expert at conveying the most discouragingly withered blank face. A pigeon is the crux of the ceremony. Soledad is meant to hold it in her hands then let it go. With all three women dressed in white and heading towards the beach, Soledad’s grandmother reminds her how important it is that she doesn’t look back at the pigeon once she’s let it go.

On the beach the aunt and grandmother begin the ceremony, drinking alcohol and talking though as possessed. The conversation is about expelling bad energy, and only allowing good energy to enter. When Soledad lets go of the bird, it lands just a few feet away. As her aunt and grandmother walk ahead of her, Soledad does what she was warned against, and looks back at the bird. As soon as the three women arrive back at the house, the phone rings. It’s her grandmother’s medium calling from Puerto Rico for Soledad. She asks one question, “Why did you look back?” For a minute and a half, Soledad stares at the camera while being comforted by her grandmother’s medium. Played by a great actor, Soledad listens and stares, her face withstanding an avalanche of tears. Why Did You Look Back elicited many feelings in me, and I like feelings in art. And beauty.

In my last night in Miami, we were all taken to Santa’s Enchanted Forest. I’d never considered what Christmas would be like in a place without snow. Everyone was relaxed and throwing money at rigged games. This last image could stand-in for what my experience in Miami felt like, and maybe looks like a still from a movie I’ll never make.

Culture

The Club Is Coming to the Stage

We enter and make our way to what is approximately front left of the DJ booth, where we’re accustomed to dancing at clubs in New York. “So is this a techno club or a dance performance?” yells an uncertain participant in my boyfriend’s ear. He laughs, bouncing along to Ben UFO, and yells back, “It’s both!” The club has long been a hot topic in European contemporary dance but it is only now making its way into New York performance venues, largely through transatlantic tours. R.O.S.E. follows recent examples like Michele Rizzo’s HIGHER xtn. at MoMA PS1 (May 2024), (LA)HORDE’s Room with a View at NYU Skirball (October 2023), and Gisèle Vienne’s Crowd at BAM (October 2022).

Do these performances compromise the club’s spirit — a space idealized for its anonymity, dark lighting, and thundering music? The notion of the club as a utopian escape is admittedly just that — an ideal — because of how its intense conditions can create barriers to entry. Still, the club remains sacred for many, a place to forge connections and embrace an alternative state of being. Looking at how performances transfer this spirit to new settings reveals what aspects of the club are essential and those that aren’t.

Sharon Eyal, R.O.S.E. 2024. Photography by Stephanie Berger, courtesy of Park Avenue Armory.

Eyal’s dancers make their entrance. The lighting shifts from roving blue to yellow spotlights as Ben UFO’s tracks transition to more melodic beats. Clad in deconstructed lace Dior lingerie with dark red tears painted on their faces, the dancers move cautiously in a tightly maintained pack, slicing paths through the horde with hoof-like steps and jerky leg extensions. After around ten minutes of this controlled choreography, the dancers vanish as the lighting shifts back to blue and Ben UFO picks up his dubby beats. The club, as we knew it, resumes. This cycle of tightly executed movements and free-flowing club-goers repeats several times, each time emboldening the dancers to plunge further into the crowd.

Clubbing in a building once built for the U.S. Army National Guard on Manhattan’s Upper East Side turns out to be surprisingly successful — at least for the audience. What starts as an awkward, scattered group searching for their non existent seats gradually gels into an engaged, bouncing crowd that erupts in cheers each time the dancers enter and exit. Performance patrons who might never step foot in a club find themselves swept up in its potential for communion, moving in unison with fellow ticket holders. But it isn’t until the very end of R.O.S.E. that the dancers finally break free from Eyal’s choreography and join the fired-up audience in a brief moment of improvisatory movement with the music. By keeping her dancers at arm’s length, Eyal seems more interested in the club as a backdrop for her signature movement style than wholly as a space with meaningful stories to be told.

Michele Rizzo, HIGHER xtn. 2024. Photography by Cameron Kelly courtesy of MoMA PS1.

Back in May, I attended Wire Festival, a multiday electronic music event at Knockdown Center that had no shortage of organically united dancefloors. It attracted a crowd of seasoned ravers who were eager to celebrate the start of spring as they danced alongside DJs who played well into the daylight. I left Wire in an afternoon daze to see Michele Rizzo’s HIGHER xtn. at MoMA PS1. My sleepless euphoria only deepened as the performance unfolded, starting with a lone dancer who looked plucked out of the festival.

The dancer, dressed in sneakers, baggy jeans, and a tight tank top, shuffled slowly into the gallery, perfectly in sync with the looping bars of an understated electronic melody. Soon, other dancers, clad in the same staple rave uniform, joined him — each having traveled from Europe for the U.S. museum debut of HIGHER xtn., which premiered at the Stedelijk in Amsterdam in 2018 and quickly became a fixture at kunsthalles and festivals across the continent. As the score’s tempo climbed, the choreography locked into a 16-count sequence, which the dancers executed with precise synchrony. They remained intensely focused, never making eye contact with each other, as they sought release in the endless repetition of synthesized beats. Once the dancers reached their limit, they stopped the sequence and exited the gallery, one by one.

HIGHER xtn. used the focused daylight of the gallery to highlight the meditative release found in the repetitive movements that dominate dark dancefloors. The performance’s restraint brought more consistency and intentionality than Eyal’s all-encompassing club construction in R.O.S.E. Yet both performances offer enticing entry points into club culture for those who may not frequent raves. Rizzo’s ecstatic, hypnotic repetitions reveal how the club can mirror other meditative practices, while Eyal’s interpolation of performance and clubbing helped hesitant audience members blossom by the end. Still, both works overlook one of the most underappreciated aspects of clubbing — its potential for individual expression. HIGHER xtn.’s pristine uniformity especially risks promoting the outdated techno trope that there’s a “right” way to dance to electronic music.

Maybe this shortcoming is, in fact, a benefit. For habitual ravers jaded by one too many sunrise sets, it’s a reminder to return to the club with more intention. If you pause and peer through the darkness, you’ll see hundreds of people moving to the same beat, each with their own subtle variations. This collective choreography is a ready-made spectacle that doesn’t need validation in a theater or museum. And when the music shifts slightly, you can watch the ripple effect sweep through the crowd while feeling the new beat in your body. Maybe this small bit of magic is best left on the dance floor.

Culture

Real Slick, Jack: Psyche Organic Arrives in New York

Shop Psyche Organic at Happier Grocery and Dimes. Coming soon to @citarellagourmetmarket @unionmarket @gourmetgarage @deciccos @fairwaymarket plus many more.

Culture

Porsche SCOPES Brings Art, Music, and Design to Toronto

The festival was a full immersion into Toronto’s dynamic creative energy. Day one set the tone with DJ collective Living Room, followed by an experimental performance by Claire Rousay that captivated the crowd. Jewelry designer Steff Eleoff unveiled her Porsche Taycan 4S art car installation—a bold fusion of automotive and wearable art inspired by her Sedona ring—while OVO Sound’s Naomi Sharon and DVSN wrapped up the night with powerful, genre-defying performances.

We witnessed SCOPES Toronto bridging underground and mainstream with day two’s lineup. DJ Korea Town Acid’s set paved the way for Angelphroot and Dameer’s debut of BASSMATI, a track blending South Asian influences with bass-driven sounds. Chippy Nonstop’s return to Toronto and Richie Hawtin’s extended set were milestones of the evening, proving that the city’s underground scene has a global resonance.

The final day featured standout performances from local pianist Harrison, Indigenous artist Tia Wood, and hip-hop visionary Sean Leon, who elevated his set with a live choir. Moonshine Collective’s film and musical performance explored themes of African utopia, showcasing art’s power to bridge culture and technology. Rising Toronto star SadBoi, who paused her tour to perform at SCOPES, further underscored the festival’s commitment to nurturing local talent.

Throughout the weekend, we experienced installations from artists like Mitsu Mitsu and culinary creations from Bar Mordecai, capturing the multifaceted creativity Porsche SCOPES brought to Toronto. This milestone 10th edition, open to all, allowed Toronto’s vibrant arts scene to thrive, underscoring SCOPES’ mission to celebrate local talent while connecting it to a global audience.

office had the chance to connect with rising star SadBoi ahead of the event. In our conversation, she shared insights into her creative journey and reflected on what performing and growing up in Toronto means to her and her work.

How are you, and where are you at right now? You told me you were traveling.

Um, I’m good, I’m feeling really good right now. I’m traveling back to Salt Lake City. I had a show yesterday in Seattle. I’m on tour right now with Coco and Claire.

How is touring life treating you? Do you like it?

I love being on the road. To be honest, I feel like I don’t know—like I’ve had good experiences and bad ones—but this time it’s really fun, especially with the people I’m surrounded by. It’s also the longest tour I’ve been on; I have about four more weeks to go. I’m trying not to think about how many days I have left.

Do you feel homesick?

Yes, because when I start thinking about how many days are left, I start to miss my dogs. I’ve just been trying to stay in the moment—I don’t even know what day of the week it is, to be honest with you.

Oh, sweet! What are your dogs’ names?

Jillian and Winston. I know, they’re crazy names.

You’ll be performing at SCOPES in Toronto, which is where you grew up. Do you feel like the crowd is different when you perform in Toronto compared to other cities?

Yes, I mean, Toronto just feels different because it’s home. Every time I come back to perform, something in my career has changed. The last time I performed in Toronto, people just wanted to have a good time, and I’m excited to perform back home again to see everyone’s reactions. I know it’s going to be different from the last time. It’s exciting to see your own growth. Toronto is a tough crowd, though. If we’re with you, we’re really with you.

So, they’re super picky? You have to gain their respect, or what is it?

I think Toronto people are in their own world, but when something really connects with them, they’ll lose themselves in the moment. But it takes something to bring them out of that. Toronto crowds are tough because even if they like you, they won’t show it outright until they’re really vibing with you.

It’s like a vibe check, right?

Exactly. They’ll enjoy your performance, but it’s hard to explain. When people visit Toronto, they often say, “Oh, you guys are so nice,” and I’m like, “I don’t think we’re that nice, we’re just polite.” Like, you can walk down the street, and no one will say anything, but it’s just our mannerisms.

You mentioned Toronto can have a moody energy, especially at night, and that the underground night scene there really inspires you. Can you talk more about what makes Toronto's nightlife so influential for you?

Absolutely, Toronto has this unique energy that comes alive at night. Similar to New York, there are the popular clubs everyone knows, but you need to find your niche—the people who know where the real parties are. I remember going to raves in high school yards, sneaking in because I wasn’t old enough. Events like Baby, Jerk!, and Yes Yes Y’all were pivotal, exposing me to DJs blending dancehall with EDM—something I hadn’t seen before. Toronto nightlife is moody and intense, but when everyone’s out, it’s like the whole city is alive.