REVIEW: Home Grown Voices Shine at the Saratoga Film Showcase
01/25 @ Saratoga Arts, Saratoga Springs
“This block exists because there is no single way into filmmaking. What matters is starting, finding your people, and making the work.”
Snow pushed the Home Grown block of the Saratoga Film Showcase indoors and onto Zoom, but the shift in format barely registered once the films began rolling. If anything, watching from home sharpened the intimacy, bringing audience and filmmakers together on one screen. The Home Grown series is a slate of shorts made by local filmmakers, shot around the familiar regions, telling stories that feel as though they were pulled straight from our own neighborhoods. As distance dissolved quickly, what remained were shorts on the small screen, and a big shared sense of pride.
The Home Grown selection, presented in collaboration with the 518 Film Network, played like a snapshot of a filmmaking community in motion. Genres collided. Experience levels varied wildly. Spencer Sherry, president of the 518 Film Network, narrated the Zoom screening and filmmaker conversations, with the tone of someone hosting friends rather than moderating a panel. “This is about people figuring out who they are through making things,” he said. “There’s no right path. There’s just the work.”
That work arrived in many forms. Pizza Cutter by Noah Manglapus exploded with color and stylized violence, a giallo-inspired short that embraced both horror and humor without apology. Shot with friends from SUNY Oswego who continue to collaborate long after graduation, the film reveled in its absurd premise while treating its craft seriously. Manglapus spoke about wanting to make something visually striking and fun, even when juggling multiple roles on set, and the result felt fearless in its commitment to style.
Dennis! by Scott and Jason Caldwell carried a very different energy, grounded in frustration and sibling chemistry. Filmed in an apartment and shaped by real world interruptions, including a neighbor and a barking dog that eventually made its way into the film itself, the short leaned into its constraints. Watching it over Zoom only heightened the sense that this was a film born from persistence rather than polish. It was funny, irritated, and unmistakably raw.
Ian Roach’s Hot Boy Summer balanced humor with unease, using comedy to explore the strange anxiety of growing up in a world that rarely feels stable. Roach described comedy as “a way to invite people in before asking them to sit with something heavier,” and the approach worked. The laughs came easily, but so did the recognition.
Other films may have slowed the festival's pacing, but kept the celebration going. Juliette Monarch’s Casualty unfolded as a poetic reflection shaped by grief. Shot largely alone and assembled from moments captured during golden hour, the film felt delicate without being fragile. Monarch spoke about discovering filmmaking as a way to process loss, and that honesty carried through the quiet pacing and careful compositions. Born a Secret by Miriam Russell also stood out for its emotional clarity, demonstrating a first-produced script shaped by lived experience and collaboration with more seasoned filmmakers. The film’s sense of found family felt especially resonant within the audience, adding to the widely harmonic feel of the Home Grown slate of stories.
Two shorts lingered longest in conversation, and were personal favorites around the virtual chat. Micah Khan’s Stake Out emerged as a clear standout, a tightly controlled thriller that used genre to its utmost advantage. On the surface, it played out like a vampire story. Beneath that, it wrestled with climate anxiety and the consequences of refusing to listen. Khan spoke openly about using camera placement, focus, and physical distance between characters to tell the story visually.
Joe Gietl’s Tasteless left a different impression, unsettling and darkly funny in ways that resisted easy resolution. The film trusted discomfort and let it sit. Reactions rippled through the Zoom as the credits rolled, a sure sign that the film had struck something deeper than shock. Sherry summed it up simply. “When people don’t stop talking after a short ends, that’s the win.”
What became clear as the block unfolded was how much of this work existed because of local connection. Filmmakers talked about meeting collaborators through the 518 Film Network, about returning to the Capital Region after school, about deciding to stay and build rather than leave. “This used to be five people trying to find each other,” Sherry said. “Now it’s dozens of films and a real ecosystem.”The films carried the room, even without a room to sit in. They proved that the Capital Region’s creative pulse does not depend on perfect conditions, only on people willing to show up, share their work, and keep making the next thing.