Bobby Abate (USA) makes films and videos that fuse nostalgia, psychodrama, and spectacle with a distinctly modern resonance. His recent work, the occult themed Love Rose (2010) and Gossip (2011) premiered at the New York Film Festival and his 1960′s era supernatural drama The Evil Eyes (2011) won \aut\FILM Award for Best LGBT Film at the 50th Ann Arbor Film Festival. Other exhibitions and screenings include the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Moscow International Film Festival, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, San Francisco Cinematheque, and the ICA in London and Palm Beach. Critics celebrated his underground feature Certain Women co-directed with Peggy Ahwesh; and MOMA called the film “as sustained and as successful as Todd Haynes’ acclaimed Far From Heaven” with an “almost opposite approach.” Film Comment Magazine named Bobby one of the top 25 emerging Filmmakers for the 21st Century. Among other accolades, he is also the recipient of the Princess Grace Award. He is currently working on his first mainstream feature Dressed in Black with Damsels in Distress co-producer Charlie Dibe.
The Evil Eyes (2011) An homage to the death of the soap opera.
Set in the 1960′s, The Evil Eyes is the story of a grandmother faced with her mortality, a mother in mid-life crisis, and a son realizing his sexuality – a dysfunctional family whose unspoken angst manifests in the latest episode of their beloved supernatural soap opera, Before Dawn.
Tina SLoan, veteran of Guiding Light, stars as Before Dawn’s the death-cursed matriarch whose daughter slowly vanishes into thin air as her grandson channels the family’s fate in his crystal ball.
Inspired by the original Dark Shadows, cinematographer Bradford Young evokes a dreamlike atmosphere using monochromatic studio cameras of the era. Filming took place at St. Cecilia’s Convent in Brooklyn, New York. In contrast, the colourful 1960′s living room was shot separately in high definition on location in suburban New Jersey.
The Evil Eyes premiered as part of the 49th annual New York Film Festival in 2011.
Written and Directed by Bobby Abate
Produced by Bobby Abate and Ben Howe
Distributed by the Video Data Bank
