THE IDIOTMAKER'S GRAVITY TOUR (2011)

“The Idiotmaker’s Gravity Tour is a no-budget, do-it-yourself excursion to India, from a filmmaker of considerable enterprise and admirable aplomb. Actor William Cully Allen has a very dynamic face -- there is a piquant, tragic quality there that makes one understand and gravitate towards him and his mission. The beautiful cinematography and the compelling story guarantee a 'gravity tour' to the East that you won’t regret taking.”
-Rob Nilsson, Cannes Film Festival and Sundance Film Festival award-winning filmmaker

The Idiotmaker's Gravity Tour is the upcoming fictional narrative film directed by Daniel Kremer, and co-written by Kremer and William Cully Allen (the film's lead actor, upon whose life much of the film's backstory is based). It tells the story of Max Plugin, a jaded relic of the 60's who has recently turned 54 years old. Currently in a state of high malaise, Max ran away from home at age 16 to hitchhike across country from Hibbing, Minnesota. A guru-like figure named Teschlock took Max under his wing when Max reached the Lost Coast area of California. Teschlock invited Max to come to India with him and a few other 'disciples' to live on an ashram. Max, following a truly transcendent meditation experience, declined and returned home to the bosom of his family to lead a different life, thinking he had been taken as far as he could be. Now, decades later, full of vague regret, Max finds himself in Uttar Pradesh in search of his guru's unknown grave-site. A year after arriving there, Master Teschlock went off and vanished one day in remote rural India, never to be heard from again. It is said that Teschlock buried himself, much akin to the Biblical fate of Moses. Max has now come to India for the first time to find the gravesite, following a trail of cryptic clues. This elegy to the classic 70's American "journey films" like Five Easy Pieces, as well as 60's literature like Carlos Castaneda, will feature exciting locations in rural and urban India, Montreal, New York, Philadelphia and New Jersey.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
  • Feature-Length Audio Commentary with Co-Writer/Cinematographer/Director Daniel Kremer and Co-Writer/Actor William Cully Allen
  • Original Trailer
  • 2 Teaser Trailers
  • Deleted Scenes
  • Blooper Reel
  • The Original Bert & I Stories from "Down East" Recordings
  • Chapter Selections
$20.00 + 2.30 Shipping and Handling
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For more information, visit this title's IMDb page or the ConFluence film-description page.
Color / Stereo / 2.35:1

COMING IN JANUARY 2012!

Poster: A COLLECTION OF CHEMICALS

Own your own screenprinted poster designed by Doctor Pizzoli especially for the film A Collection of Chemicals. The posters come to you ready to hang. There are a limited number available, so order soon!

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Poster: A Collection of Chemicals




TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS (2009)

Twilight of the Idols is John Gross' follow-up to directing a trilogy of feature films back-to-back (in an impressive three-year time-span). This short film is a dark portrait of an oppressed football-fan inescapably trapped within a brooding, disenfranchised American landscape. The film tells the story of Rick, a blue-collar independent contractor who has fallen onto extremely dire economic hard times. The only thing that keeps him going is an intense love of his favorite hometown football team. As he rabidly awaits the Super Bowl at the end of the week, at which the Eagles are contestants, his ex-wife and son start collecting their own set of additional problems. Harold, his son, has been denied student loans for college and both of them pine for Rick’s lost presence at the dinner table, but Rick’s violent temper regarding his favorite team is somewhat frightening and it has alienated everyone from him. However, a cosmic, unexpected visit from an unlikely deity prod Rick to ask that vexing question of what is most important to him.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
  • Slide Show of Behind-the-Scenes Production Stills
  • Original Trailer
  • Chapter Selections
COMING SOON FOR PURCHASE AT THE CONFLUENCE STORE!

For more information, visit this title's IMDb page or the ConFluence film-description page.
28 minutes / Color / Mono / 1.85:1

A TRIP TO SWADADES (2008)

A Trip to Swadades is an award-winning feature film drama that tells the story of Schweitzer Haas (Robert Swenson), a 74-year-old retired professor who returns to Philadelphia, the city of his youth, for the first time in twenty years to visit his hermit brother Ezra (Glenn Walsh). The two have never quite seen eye-to-eye, but it seems that Ezra has developed a freakish steel-trap memory, and has been keeping complex memory logs to document their past. As a result, however, Ezra's apartment is a den of bad smells and filthy living conditions. When Schweitzer goes out to get his brother cleaning supplies and gets lost in the city he once knew like the back of his hand, he is found by old friend Claude Schoonover (Stephen Hatzai), a world-class cut-up with a wisecracking but nonetheless laconic "chauffeur" Doobie (Kenneth John McGregor). Claude and Schweitzer visit a place of importance from their past: an old shvitz bath-house. It is there that Schweitzer realizes that he must reconcile with his brother before it is too late and time ultimately runs out for him.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
  • Feature-Length Audio Commentary with Writer-Director Daniel Kremer, Cinematographer Aaron Hollander and Lead Actor Robert Swenson
  • Original Trailers
  • Blooper Reel
  • Chapter Selections
$16.00 + 2.30 Shipping and Handling
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For more information, visit this title's IMDb page or the ConFluence film-description page.
64 minutes / Black and White / Mono / 1.85:1


DVD: A Trip to Swadades




JIM AND THE INFIDELS (2008)

Jim and the Infidels is the tragicomic final entry in John Gross' trilogy about student filmmakers (following David Cronenberg Presents Wireless Internet and the epic Ben Fries the Slaves) is perhaps the culmination of the two previous works. It tells the story of Jim (David Coleman), an impetuous film student who, with the help of his girlfriend Laura (Brooke Somers), writes and directs a series of ambitious film projects, the most substantial of which is “The Story of Molly and Joshua”. Their problem, however, is to decide upon a suitable follow-up movie after the success of that film. The one-track-minded, stimulants-addicted Jim and the sensitive, introspective Laura think of a viable concept on which to hinge their new movie. While brainstorming Laura finds herself growing apart from Jim, but at the same time is inextricably drawn to him. When Jim and his new friends investigate adapting Shakespeare’s Macbeth in a decrepit abandoned building, Laura isolates herself from Jim and the shallow world she observes around her. Meanwhile, Jim and his “infidels” discover something highly unexpected awaiting them in the abandoned building…and their unpredictable adventure begins.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
  • Original Trailer
  • Chapter Selections
$15.00 + 2.30 Shipping and Handling
Comes in Plastic Amray DVD case with the above cover art

For more information, visit this title's IMDb page or the ConFluence film-description page.
109 minutes / Color / Mono / 1.85:1


DVD: Jim and the Infidels




A COLLECTION OF CHEMICALS (2009)

A Collection of Chemicals is an absurdist comedy/drama that tells the story of terminally bored recent widower Si Foster (William Cully Allen), an eccentric and terribly lonely puzzle of a man who is also a self-proclaimed eggplant connoisseur. His daughter Sonya (Katya Quinn-Judge) was kidnapped two years prior and, for reasons unknown to her, the ransom somehow never wound being paid. As the Fourth of July approaches and Si finds that he has virtually no one with whom to celebrate the holiday, he finally gets up the nerve to contact the kidnappers through their intermediary. He agrees to pay the ransom with the inheritance he was left and is soon reunited with her...only to find that she has accepted her captors as her new family and has grown to love them as such. Alas, the oddball Si is clueless and inept in interacting and trying to re-establish his relationship with her. But Sonya has a few tricks up her sleeve to get him to reveal why she was seemingly abandoned by her father two years prior...with the help of some strange cargo she has brought back home with her.

SPECIAL FEATURES
  • Full-Length Audio Commentary with Writer-Director Daniel Kremer and Lead Actor William Cully Allen
  • Trailers
  • Deleted Scenes/Outtake Reel
  • Special Cinematography Reel
For more information, visit this title's IMDb page or the ConFluence film-description page.

27 minutes + 11 minutes (extras) / Color / Stereo / 1.78:1


DVD: A Collection of Chemicals




BEN FRIES THE SLAVES (2007)

Ben Fries the Slaves is an epic-length comedy-drama about 14-year-old Ben Fries. He has recently composed a six-hour video epic about the life of Rimbaud (pronounced "Rambo"), the beloved movie action hero, consisting of over two-hundred episodes and weekend after weekend of shooting and editing mountains of footage. Ben has an entourage of college students who follow his every word and his every idea. He finds extraordinary images in the life of Rimbaud such as Rimbaud engaged in a game of chess with his master and Rimbaud experiencing torture lasting 600 years. Timmy Hause is a child prodigy artist who became known for his remarkable representations of figures like Dostoyevsky, St. Benedict and others. He begins a series of drawings in all media about Ben Fries—and soon after, Ben destroys his epic, disappearing in Venezuela to be presumed dead. College roommates Nikki and Julian, who have been involved with Ben and Timmy respectively, attempt to put together the pieces of the puzzle whilst trying to ward off (only to succumb to) the malicious agenda of the malevolent student filmmaker Rick Algarosa, who always expressed ill will for Ben Fries and the Rimbaud epic.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
  • Original Trailer
  • Chapter Selections
  • 2-Disc Set with Original Intermission
$16.00 + 2.30 Shipping and Handling
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For more information, visit this title's IMDb page or the ConFluence film-description page.
164 minutes / Color / Mono / 1.33:1


DVD: Ben Fries the Slaves




DAVID CRONENBERG PRESENTS WIRELESS INTERNET (2006)

David Cronenberg Presents Wireless Internet is an artfully gritty tribute to the video aesthetic and cinematic condemnation of the wireless age. It is also John Gross' feature-film debut. It tells the story of David Cronenberg (the well-known Canadian director’s film-student counterpart) and the creative process in the making of an ambitious “neorealist video” entitled "Wireless Internet"—and the ultimate toll it takes on his state of mind as the realities of the “wireless internet virus” morph into something well beyond the realm of simple fiction. The film's soundtrack is the music of the independent Montreal-based Constellation Records group A Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
  • John Gross' short film Three Days With Timmy
  • Music Video, "Courage", featuring scenes, outtakes and behind-the-scenes footage from David Cronenberg Presents Wireless Internet
  • Back 2 tha Stone Age, edited by John Gross, featuring scenes from Lars Von Trier's The Element of Crime edited to the music of A Silver Mt. Zion
  • An Alternate Ending to Kiss Me Deadly, edited by John Gross
  • Original Trailer
  • Chapter Selections
$13.00 + 2.30 Shipping and Handling
Comes in Plastic Amray DVD case with the above cover art

For more information, visit this title's IMDb page or the ConFluence film-description page.
78 minutes / Color / Mono / 1.33:1


DVD: David Cronenberg Presents Wireless Internet




CEILING-HEAD ANGEL (2009)

Ceiling-Head Angel is filmmaker Daniel Kremer’s first piece of filmmaking shot entirely in New York City following his arrival from Philadelphia. This short narrative-documentary hybrid is a poignant and often hilarious examination of two men well past their prime. 85-year-old Joe very apparently struggles with a desire to retain the illusion of youth. 69-year-old Angel wakes up every morning and finds himself entranced and captivated by shapes he sees on his ceiling when he looks straight up, trying to perceive objects in abstract figures caused by the chipped ceiling paint. The curmudgeonly Joe cannot see, and perhaps refuses to see, these objects.

SPECIAL FEATURES
  • "Joe and Angel Uncut" (22 minutes)
  • Other Recent Short Films
For more information, visit the ConFluence film-description page.

17 minutes (plus extras) / Color / Mono


DVD: Ceiling-Head Angel




POINTS ON A SPACE AGE (2007)

Points on a Space Age is Ephraim Asili's 2007 video-essay documentary about the Sun Ra Arkestra. The film is a layered and experimental combination of onscreen text, recent performance footage, archival footage and new interviews that compellingly mirrors the aesthetic of perhaps the most famous avant-garde jazz ensemble of all time, paralleling the arkestra as it once existed with the way it exists today, currently under the leadership of longtime member Marshall Allen.

Conceived, Produced and Directed by Ephraim Asili
Edited by Daniel Kremer

For more information, visit this title's IMDb page or the ConFluence film-description page.

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60 minutes / Color / Stereo

YARNS TO BE SPUN ON THE WAY TO THE HAPPY HOME (2007)

Yarns To Be Spun on the Way to the Happy Home is a multi award-winning short autobiographical documentary essay film about using art as an escape from the limitations of a speech impediment. Filmmaker Daniel Kremer explores and parallels how Spalding Gray, the renowned monologue performance artist, used his own creative life as an escape from his own depression. An analogy is made to how the filmmaker used cinema to escape the pain of his stuttering disorder.

For more information, visit this title's IMDb page or the ConFluence film-description page.

$13.00 + 2.30 Shipping and Handling

14 minutes + 26 minutes (extras) / Color / Mono / 1.33:1


DVD: Yarns To Be Spun on the Way to the Happy Home




CHARLES AT THE THRESHOLD (2006)

Charles at the Threshold is a tender drama that tells the story of Charles and Sabina, two intelligent and well-read teenagers who have just graduated high school at the top of their class. They decide to get married at eighteen just one week after they graduate, only to divorce at the age of nineteen. The years pass and Charles, a self-professed “old soul,” begins seeing a woman named Jillian, a fragile free-spirit who had a child when she was twenty. When a seemingly typical friendly lunch meeting with Sabina approaches, Charles begins showing signs of anxiety—and from just observing him, Jillian realizes where the mysterious Charles’ true feelings may lie, and that the love he held held for Sabina might have been more than impulsive or lacking in maturity.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
  • Feature-Length Audio Commentary with Writer-Director Daniel Kremer
  • Original Trailers
  • Short Films Collection
  • Blooper Reel
  • Chapter Selections
Comes in Plastic Amray DVD case with the above cover art

For more information, visit this title's IMDb page or the ConFluence film-description page.

27 minutes / Color / Mono / 1.66:1


DVD: Charles at the Threshold



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