James Keitel

Be Afraid

Not long after John Chambers and his family arrive at their new home in a small country town of Pennsylvania, John begins to experience sleep paralysis. Lying there paralyzed, trapped within his own nightmare, other-worldly beings visit John. They are entities which exist in the darkest shadows of the night and can only be seen out of the corner of one's eye. These encounters begin to haunt John, transforming to complete terror as he discovers the entities' sole purpose... the abduction of his seven year old son. In the end, John will uncover the town's horrific secret, a portal on his land, and make one last attempt to save his son before the shadow people permanently take him away to their world.

The Pikme-Up

In the mid-1980's the coffeehouse movement in Los Angeles was beginning with wild promise. A tattered Hollywood storefront called The Pikme-up became the prototype for a new subculture that started as an unruly rebellion and exploded into a national phenomenon. The place was a bohemian revolution, a happening of ideas, poetry, music, and performance where a motley group of outcasts formed a unique community and an enduring family. Our documentary on The Pikme-up utilizes an amazing wealth of materials--more than 5000 photographs, over 200 video hours of performances, hundreds of print elements, and intimate interviews with friends, employees, and performers. We hope our experimentation with the materials and how memory is represented in film is true to the spirit of this amazing moment in Los Angeles cultural history.