NYC "remains a hotbed for con artists (whether small-time hustlers or real estate developers) and more importantly, fresh ideas"

Noelia Santos caught "Blank City" Saturday night at the Tribeca Film Festival. Here's how Santos describes the documentary by Celine Danhier for MovieMaker Magazine: "It is an enjoyable chronicle of the giddy, nihilistic moviemaking style that emerged alongside the No Wave music scene of late 1970s/early 1980s in New York."

Here's more from the article by Santos:

Some of the best quotes she gets come from today’s well-known indie actors and directors who emerged from or alongside the downtown New York art scene of the late '70s-early ‘80s . . . like Jim Jarmusch, whose early films like 'Permanent Vacation' and 'Stranger Than Paradise' featured his friends hanging out in their run-down apartments and walking the streets of the then-dilapidated Lower East Side. Instead of lamenting the co-option of downtown DIY culture into mainstream condo living, he notes that 'New York was always about trade, commerce and thievery' — and that it remains a hotbed for con artists (whether small-time hustlers or real estate developers) and more importantly, fresh ideas.

In talking with several of these moviemakers afterwards, it seemed the freshness still hasn’t worn off. Michael Oblowitz (1983’s King Blank) is still making movies. Nick Zedd is now painting and getting into fashion design. But some, like James Chance, are probably simply inspiring others to be themselves.