Gen Z Detective Agency

Debut, Or Objects of the Field of Debris as Currently Catalogued (2025) - Castronovo A female narrator tells us how she came in possession of a laptop and a handwritten diary of Julian Castronovo, a young aspiring filmmaker who disappeared while researching his subject that he came across in a New York apartment by accident. So starts Debut, Or Objects of the Field of Debris as Currently Catalogued, an auto-fiction, a mystery within a mystery about a young filmmaker and a missing art forger. Castronovo introduces himself in a webcam- his age, his height, his proportionally bigger head compared with the rest of his body, and what is about to unfold in his debut feature. His trajectory is not dissimilar to that of hundreds of other young aspiring American filmmakers - moving to New York, then LA, pulling some shady connections and struggling while doing odd-end jobs to survive. Let's set aside his good looks and pompous title for the time being, because his investigation into a missing Chinese art forger is, indeed, very intriguing.

With some connection from a friend, he landed an apartment in New York. While repainting the walls, he finds a hard copy of Don Quixote and a drawing of a deer with three digit numbers written in the back in a hidden compartment. Doing some online research, he finds the former tenant was an art forger from China who worked for the landlord who turned out to be a gallery owner. The gallery owner later got busted for fraud and served prison terms. But the forger disappeared and has been missing for twenty years.

Castronovo moves to LA. There he hustles with fake business cards that he works for various movie studios and assumes a Chandler-esque detective identity- wearing black suits and ties from his catering server job. His hustling eventually catches the eye of a mid-level independent movie producer and together they shop around for funding to make a very movie about the mystery about the disappearance of the art forger. Some more mysterious phone calls later, he gets a hold of a box full of videotapes and other trinkets that belong to the disappeared forger, Fawn Ma. They reveal that Ma was not only a forgery artist but a conceptual performance artist which we see the glimpses of throughout the film.

The short feature is done very economically: there's no actual footage of any action. It's done through narration and webcam footage of himself talking. Any location shots are done with puppets donning Robert Smith hair. The rest are static shots of clues left behind by the forger and her art work - short videos, photos. With the photos of the forger pointing finger at objects and buildings, Castronovo tracks down her whereabouts, using google maps. And it turns out to be in the Czech Republic, coincidentally the place where an interested mysterious investor resides as well.

I have to give Castronovo credit for creating an entertaining yarn in a short feature with no budget. Debut hooks you in and never lets you go. It's an enjoyable ride spiked with ingenuity and creativity suited for social media generation, doing a lot with so little.

Rhythm of Life

Variations on a Theme (2026) - Delmar, Jacobs Devon Delmar and Jason Jacobs's Variations on a Theme is a quiet revelation of a film. Shot entirely in the small rural community of Kharkams in Kamiesberge mountains in Western South Africa, it records the daily lives of Hettie, an 80 year old goat herder and her neighbors. With a stationary camera and wide frames, it records sunrises and sunsets and everything in between, as the narration (by Jason Jacobs, a grandson of Hettie) unhurriedly informs us that some town-wide scam is in progress. On the radio and loud speakers from a car, they are asking the residents, many of whom are descendents of WWII veterans, to turn in 'the blue form' to get reparation money the government owes them. According to the narrator, black South African soldiers were only compensated with a pair of army boots and a bicycle when they returned after the war.

All of the residents are swept up in the scam, paying exorbitant fees to file the form - "to spend money to get money". Even stoic Hettie is swept up in it. But daily life goes on. She lets out the goats in the morning, gets water from the town water tank (which serves also as the town teenagers hangout), chat with her neighbors, use the communal outhouse, watch some TV shows and see the sun goes down over the rolling, picaresque hills from her porch. Others play dominoes outside the ramshackle supermarket and children play in the playground.

Delmar and Jacobs build a gentle rhythm through repetition, in Variations on a Theme. It lulls viewers into a warm, comfortable and inviting place, where every day is pretty much the same. Hettie's daily routine goes on, the local dreamer who sleeps outside still dreams of a woman he met in the 70s. The sun goes down every night, providing a spectacular sunset every time. The cramped houses and their colorful walls and live animals, everything in the film is laid back and unchanging. The commotion comes from people still anxiously holding on to a hope for the reparations to kick in, which they believe, will come any day now - Gladwin, the local hairdresser, ordered all new supplies, expecting to get paid from the fund. Domino players talk about taking an overseas trip with the money.

Hettie's birthday is coming and according to the narrator, her large family from the city that she seldom talks to will be coming for her birthday, even though she is pretty much 'detached' now and started to enjoy her isolation and solitude ever since her husband's passing. After the hectic birthday celebration, and her large family staying in her small house for several days, Hettie's daughter suggests that she come and live with them in the city. She is not getting any younger and it is time to leave behind the inconvenience of rural living.

The storm's brewing from the distant, Hettie's milk on her nightstand falls and shatters on the ground. The change is coming. Delmar and Jacobs observe all these in an unhurried fashion, lamenting silently on the inevitability of time passing and changing way of life. Beautiful work.

Dumb Waiter

Hokum (2026) - McCarthy Irish filmmaker Damian McCarthy's third outing has all the hallmarks of his two very scary predecessors: everything has to do with an elaborate scheme taking place in one isolated location. Once the mechanics of action are laid out- which takes some time, the film begins to click in its scary ways. And as with Caveat and Oddity, Hokum is scary, good fun.

American writer Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott), is visiting Bilberry Woods Hotel for two reasons- to finish the ending of his Conquistador trilogy and scatter his parents ashes in nearby woods, because his parents stayed in the hotel when they were honeymooning. But Ohm is not a friendly fellow. He is arrogant and dismissive. He snaps at the old proprietor (Brendan Conroy) of the inn telling a spooky tale to the local children about how he trapped a witch in his hotel, calling him an old fool believing in superstitions. He admonishes Alby (Will O'Connell), a bell hop who is an aspiring writer, for asking for his autograph, rude to Fiona (Florence Odesh) the barkeep, all at his arrival. He later bonds with Fiona a little bit, because she reminds him of his dead mother.

The rumor has it, there's a witch who is haunting the place and the honeymoon suite is off limits because of that. You know that the suite is going to be opened up and will be the main location for most of the action taking place later on. Ohm is also carrying the guilt of the accidental death of his mother when he was a child. We see the glimpse of her ghost still haunting him and that he is in a depressive state.

Ohm encounters Jerry (David Wilmot), who lives in his van and drinking mushroom laced milk in the woods. Taking Jerry as a quack, Ohm dismisses his telltale stories about the witch and haunting of the hotel.

After Fiona and Alby discovering Ohm hanging from the ceiling, from an apparent suicide attempt, Ohm is hospitalized and recovers few weeks later. When he comes back to the hotel to gather his stuff, Ohm finds the hotel is closing for the season and Fiona has gone missing since Halloween night a couple of weeks back. Jerry is a prime suspect in Fiona's disappearance. Ohm runs into him in the woods again and Jerry suggests breaking in to the hotel after everyone clears out. Jerry is certain that they are keeping Fiona up in the Honeymoon suite.

The rest is pure McCarthy - repetition of the elevator and dumb waiter going up and down, the secret corridors in the basement, isolation and suffocation anxiety, the cat and mouse game with folklore tinged supernatural occurances. Plenty of jumpscare and hallucinogenic imagery- reoccuring rabbit creature references throughout his filmography, all mingle perfectly with the tense atmosphere McCarthy creates (out of little to nothing). Adam Scott playing the world-class asshole also helps with absurd humor. All the creepy details McCarthy puts in - the cherubic sculptures, the creepy rabbit mask, Fiona's rabbit costume, the grandfather clock, etc.

Hokum might not be as scary as Oddity, but it shows what McCarthy is capable of with a bigger budget and a Hollywood actor. I can't wait to see more from McCarthy.

Moving Picture

It Goes That Quick (2026) - Connor, Stankus We associate home movies as a nostalgic trip to the past, documenting those precious events in your life - birthdays, holiday gatherings, weddings, vacations, etc. In documentaries and narrative features, these old, faded images are used as ephemeral artifacts, to give more layers and contexts to support the narrative. But what if these artifacts are the subjects themselves in a film?

Filmmaker couple Ashley Connor and Joe Stankus started working on It Goes That Quick, in 2016, filming the lives of their respective families. It’s sort of a continuation of a home movie. But categorizing It Goes That Quick as either a documentary or a narrative would be doing the film a disservice. In it, the filmmakers' family members play themselves, with no clear narratives or big drama, other than displaying the passage of time, Connor and Stankus make the case for quotidian life as art.

Sure, there are gatherings and personal landmark moments in It Goes That Quick, captured in old film and video formats, but the majority of footage shot in the last ten years are more about life as is - like them arguing about little things and driving - lots and lots of moments that take place in cars. I remember a discussion in film class back in college, that if a person in the distant future who views movies from our lifetime, they may not understand our language, but our movement in mundane activities - walking, eating and driving, will be the most abundant things they will witness on screen and thus will represent our lives. Abbas Kiarostami's driving scenes are famous for showing the passage of time and observing life passing by through the car windows. For Connor and Stankus, being seasoned filmmakers, this notion is not lost on them. There is a lot of eating and driving in the film.

The title of the film comes from a family member telling a story of losing money fast in Vegas, at a family gathering. But it serves as the unrelenting passage of time - juxtaposing filmmakers' families getting older and greyer. There are many humorous as well as sad moments. They also make clear that their family members are being 'directed' - we see and hear either of them calling, "Action," or "Cut," or tail slating (for sync sound), within the earlier scene. But they are not reenacting some dramatic moments, it’s more of a stage direction- where to look and what direction to exit the frame. At one point, the arguing old couple say “I love you,” to each other while sitting on the sofa in their living room. Stankus calls the cut, and his grandma says, “I usually call him honey.”

Divided by chapters of the family circles in different configurations (there are grandparents, parents and lots of uncles), they argue about how to arrange tables and what to serve at a Seder dinner, doing favors by giving them rides to and fro to stores, do grocery shopping, plant trees to commemorate their pet dog who passed away and gather their old belongings from their old house as they move to an assisted facility.

In the center of it, there are Conner and Stankus as a couple, as they document their wedding, birth of their son and their little trip to Paris. As an established DP, Connor gives these 16mm Bolex shot home movie footage a little cinematic flair.

It Goes That Quick borrows that Documentary/narrative hybrid form to present the most authentic representation of life on screen, but it defies any genre conventions. The filmmakers’ method comes across as genuine, not a gimmick. What they are after is paying an ode to their family members by showing the most mundane moments in their lives, which is totally recognizable and relatable. I wish all families had their own version of this.