Interview: Matthew Porterfield (Putty Hill)

[Editor’s note: This interview took place during the AFI Fest last November. The Cinema Guild release Putty Hill this coming Friday.]

The AFI Fest serves as a West Coast funnel of sorts. Essentially bringing some of the best films from Berlin, Cannes, Venice and like Toronto, the fest/market identifies films that are in full award campaign mode but the fest’s key mandate is to promote foreign films and auteur filmmakers working in indie and mainstream films. It made sense that this year they’d develop a pair of new sections (Young Americans & New Auteurs) that promote promising new filmmakers. Among them we find Matthew Porterfield and his sophomore feature, Putty Hill.

Born from a project (Metal Gods) that wouldn’t come to fruition, Porterfield’s portrait is of a small town’s reaction to a young man’s overdose. Via his family & friends, viewers are witness to a collection of comments, regardless whether they were close to him or not. Porterfield’s camera corners these people and ask them questions about the dead man which could be interpreted in a multitude of ways. These characters seem to be more approachable to the camera than the norm, hinting that the camera can read into their thoughts. Using a cast of local, non-professional actors from Porterfield’s native Baltimore, the raw docu-narrative style bring a necessary authenticity to the portrait making for one of the better samples of U.S. indie film circa 2010 or 1st quarter of 2011, when the film receives a theatrical release via The Cinema Guild. Here’s my interview with Porterfield at the AFI Fest.