CONEY ISLAND SIREN

The spirit of a broken hearted daughter calls out to the spirit of her father at sea, like a siren, hoping that this time he'll remember what's most important. He answers her siren call and rises up from the sea to reunite with her determined to get it right this time. The beautiful reunion is ruined, yet again, by the thirst brought on by the sea washing away his memory and incurring her mournful wrath. When he realizes his failure she leads him on a chase to remind him of what's most important.

The chase leads him back to the memory of what's most important but all that's left is her scorn and disappointment and so he returns to his watery grave. Once back in the sea, drowning in sorrow, he calls out to her promising that if she calls him from the sea once again, he will not fail her.

  • vagabond
    Director
    MACHETERO, Coney Island Dreaming, Sacred And Profane Faceless Jacks, No Way Home
  • Youssef
    Writer
    Sacred And Profane Faceless Jacks
  • vagabond
    Producer
    MACHETERO, Coney Island Dreaming, Sacred And Profane Faceless Jacks, No Way Home
  • Youssef Alaoui
    Key Cast
    Sacred And Profane Faceless Jacks
  • Alexi "Flea" Fernandez
    Key Cast
    NO WAY HOME
  • Jeff "AK" Akers
    Cineamtography
    MACHETERO, Coney Island Dreaming, Sacred And Profane Faceless Jacks, No Way Home
  • Omar Villegas
    Producer
    Coney Island Dreaming,
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    20 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    July 7, 2017
  • Production Budget:
    5,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Red Epic
  • Aspect Ratio:
    4K UHD
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - vagabond

vagabond – artist, writer, producer and director

Brooklyn born and borough raised, Vagabond graduated from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & the Arts and dropped out of The School of Visual Arts. He began his career in film early on, working on independent black films such as Spikes Lees "Do The Right Thing", where he quickly learned all aspects of filmmaking and forged his own artistic and ideological aesthetic.

The first film that Vagabond produced was the documentary "RICANSTRUCTING VIEQUES”, that told the story of the US military’s occupational abuse of Vieques, Puerto Rico as a training site, through the use of interviews and live musical performance footage of Nuyorican punk rock band Ricanstruction. It opened to an emotional sold out screening at the first annual NY International Latino Film Festival and opened the Lost Film Festival 4.0 in Philadelphia. The film has gone on to screen across Europe, Australia, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and throughout the US.

vagabond would continue to work with Ricanstruction and help found what would become the Ricanstruction Netwerk, a politically radical artist collective in the vein of the Situationist International. vagabond would go on to create murals, posters, pamphlets, and videos and organize political marches, rallies, vigils, art shows, screenings and protests with the Ricanstruction Netwerk.

His first feature film, “MACHETERO” which he wrote, produced and directed stars Isaach de Bankolé (The Keeper, Ghost Dog, Coffee and Cigarettes, Manderlay) who plays a French journalist who comes to New York to interview a Puerto Rican "terrorist" in prison about his decision to use violence as a means to free his people. Screened in neighborhood/barrio community centers and squats while still in mid-production, the controversial film engendered political discussion and debate within (and outside of) the Puerto Rican Diaspora and has been called one of the most important and insightful underground political films ever made. In June of 2008 “MACHETERO” was a finalist for Best Film at the Hollywood Black Film Festival and in October of 2008 took home the prize for Best First Film at the International Film Festival South Africa. In 2009 “MACHETERO” is on a world tour participating in eight festivals in seven different countries on four different continents. The film has won six awards around the world.

Recently vagabond has been producing and directing a series of short films that have been screening at film festivals. His short film NO WAY HOME, CONEY ISLAND DREAMING and SACRED AND PROFANE FACELESS JACKS have all taken home multiple awards at festivals around the world. He's also just finished a feature length documentary, ALL ROADS LEAD TO THE FIRE ESCAPE on original Nuyorican poet Jesus Papoleto Melendez. He's also currently in production on HARLEM'S LAST POET a feature length documentary on Abiodun Oyewole of the Last Poets.

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Director Statement

CONEY ISLAND SIREN, is a slow burning, mysterious, gothic tale of horror that speaks about the nature of a cursed eternal unrest. It's rooted in the vein of Edgar Allen Poe and in the tradition of EC Comics 'Tales Of The Crypt'. As difficult, painful and terrifying as our lives can be we've always been told that we'll find rest in death, that we'll find some comfort in the afterlife.

CONEY ISLAND SIREN is a film that destroys the idea of death being a final state of rest for our souls. Its horror comes in the realization that these two spirits are trapped in a state of anguished afterlife doomed to repeat the mistakes they made in life, in a vicious unending cycle of eternity. They are terrorized by their own inability to break the perpetual horror they find themselves. The Sailor Father unable to turn around to see his Siren Daughter behind hi willing to forgive if he just turns around. The Siren Daughter unable to resist the call of her Sailor Father when he returns to the sea to finally realize his failures and promising to not make the same mistakes if she calls to him again.

On it's surface CONEY ISLAND SIREN is ghostly gothic horror tale but beneath that the film deals with our lack of imagination and out inability to break out of a cycle of unending repetition where the mistakes of our past, burden our present. It's a film that asks us to think about the cyclical mistakes we make not just in our own personal lives but collectively in the political realities we refuse to face. With climate change, unending wars, and the rise of fascism the world seems to keep making the same mistakes over and over again. CONEY ISLAND SIREN is asking that if we make the same mistakes of our those who came before us aren't we effectively living the doomed afterlife of our ancestors?