Public Hearing is the verbatim re-performance of a rural American town meeting from a transcript downloaded as publicly available information. Shot entirely in cinematic close-up on black-and-white 16mm film, a cast of actors and non-actors read between the lines in an ironic debate over the replacement of an existing Wal-Mart with a super Wal-Mart.

The movie arose out of our sparetime as teenagers with fresh driver’s licenses and cobbled-together camera gear, wandering around a tired and honestly pretty grim post-industrial mill community, reinforced with after-hours access to the darkroom at the Sun Journal (where Aaron’s dad was the visuals editor), and some half-formed education in the techniques of Robert Frank, Frederick Wiseman, Dogme 95, Italian neorealism, pre-Obama Shepard Fairey, plus whatever culture pushed its way through the creaky pipes of low-bandwidth dial-up internet, or was smuggled up the actual superhighway of I-95 from Boston and eventually New York, or mailed first class via United States Postal Service from a burgeoning Netflix in those classic matte red envelopes, as valuable and rare as cash sent from China. [...] Somehow we negotiated access to a Canon XL1 3-CCD MiniDV camera and shotgun mic from the local public access station, in exchange for taping the high school graduation we didn’t participate in.

Special Features is an apparent interview with three highlights. Presented as a lo-fi fragment from a forgotten video production, an interviewee interacts with an interviewer, recounting a special experience at once unique and shared.

An ode to movie culture and its beguiling hold on our imagination, modeled on an actual legal deposition, and accompanied by a procession of 35mm publicity stills from studio press kits.

An ode to movie culture and its beguiling hold on our imagination, modeled on an actual legal deposition, and accompanied by a procession of 35mm publicity stills from studio press kits.

An anonymous and mediated testimonial about one man's dangerous dream.

An anonymous and mediated testimonial about one man's dangerous dream.

A girl recollects a boy named Moon.

A procession of black-and-silvery-white stills of New England’s Androscoggin River unspools alongside an anxious monologue on movies, memory, and minor history.

A ghostly militia of lookalikes gradually lose their menace.