The Trick

Screening after: lolo

Programmers notes: I’ve watched The Trick three times now and sometimes it feels like I’m still living in it. A microbudgetted dream-logic comedy-noir in the lineage of Mulholland Drive and Under the Silver Lake, Neal Wynne’s feature has the ability to make you question everything you’ve just seen with a single image—and yet, once you give in to its intuitive narrative pathways, everything begins to make its own kind of sense. Which isn’t to paint this film’s narrative as inscrutable or besides the point; the story it tells is an intriguing and satisfying one. It’s just that this film can’t be reduced to a synopsis: saying it’s the story of a music-video crew tracking down an AWOL rap star is like saying Blue Velvet is the story of an ear. Curious viewers may find, like me, new worlds of imagination and emotion inside The Trick.

Paired with the short Lolo, these are two of the rare films that truly deliver on the term Lynchian; both say mysterious, beautifully stylized things in film language that carry truths and feelings no other form could express. We’re proud to offer the U.S. Festival Premiere of The Trick, and the World Premiere of Lolo; a pair of forward-looking films from directors with big things ahead.

— Eric Allen Hatch

Q+A with The Trick director Neal Wynne and Lolo director Owen Campbell expected following the films.