A New York Story

a film by Paul Schwartz

click on the image below to watch the trailer

 In the tumultuous summer of 2020, four entwined New Yorkers tell stories of how their lives have been shaped by the protests, the pandemic, and the unforeseen consequences of both.

The events of last year: in particular the explosive summer of 2020, had a profound affect on me. The pandemic, the protests, the sense of total political schism in American society...I began to see were all things I needed to address creatively, and I needed to do it in a way that minimized the risk of infection for all involved. So I came up with the idea of telling a linear story, divided into four monologues for four different characters. Each character has a very specific agenda and point of view, but the stories they tell are only fragments of what the audience comes to see by the end of the film as a whole. I decided I would shoot each actor individually, on separate days. By making the film this way, limiting the crew to exactly one person (me), and following strict Covid protocols, I could realize this story and also protect my colleagues. 

Of course this placed severe restrictions on what I could do, but I have often found that setting parameters and limitations can be, counter-intuitively: creatively freeing. After all, when you can do absolutely anything.... how do you choose? But when you can only work within a very defined framework, having that many fewer decisions to make forces those decisions to be diamond sharp. 

As I progressed in the writing and production of this film, I began to realize that I'm not aware of any other examples of a story being told precisely this way: four characters, four points of view, but a single line they all adhere to sequentially. I've found when I try to explain it to people they say: "Yes, but RASHOMON..." However that film repeats the same story three times through the eyes of different witnesses, whereas this film only goes through the story a single time, but each section of it is from a different point of view. The idea of telling a story in an unusual and possibly new way I found to be exciting.