MOVIES

Survivors

Sweetbread Studios makes the jump to the silver screen.


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Published: Apr 21, 2009

HATCHET JOB: Dana Michael in Eye of the Tiger, Thrill of the Fight.

[ movie première ]

In July 2006, writer/director Jena Serbu and her then-Uncut Productions (now Sweetbread Studios) crew set up camp behind the Water Works area behind the Art Museum. A motley-dressed gaggle of sweaty punks in terry-cloth shorts, headbands and sportswear bounced and spun in a caffeinated rush.

Welcome to Eye of the Tiger, Thrill of the Fight, the production company's first full-length film. Referred to by Serbu and actor Mark Dahl as "The Tina Yothers Army," the cast and crew spastically lampoon reality TV like Survivor and The Amazing Race, "but Philly-style, with lots of violence," said Serbu during filming. Here, a reality show offers gaming options where slapping and kicking — even murder — are all fair game, and the large-scale mess of actors and filmmakers become part of the picture. Go to any of Sweetbread's Drunken Spelling Bees or Cash Dances and you'll find something similar — where those behind the camera quickly, without warning, jump in front of the lens. The mock-social experiment at the heart of Eye of the Tiger, Thrill of the Fight finds seven seemingly homeless characters dwelling throughout the Art Museum's wet lawns and marble arches. Eventually, a crew willing to spend money betting on who survives and who dies emerges, and begin to watch — and film — the seven battle with regular Philadelphians.

If you've witnessed the manic crew's several 48 Hour Film Challenges, you understand how spastically yet purposefully this wild bunch operates. But this isn't a 48-hour thing. This was two weeks of running, jumping, aerobicizing, slapping and blood. "We're going to bring The Real World to its knees," claimed Dana Michael's Vivian character in an exaggerated smirk. After that line, characters leapt out of the metal johns in an explosion of eye-popping color and commenced hitting each other.

Sweetbread has been perfecting this bloody-beating brand of film and theater since 2003 when, as an innovative nonprofit group of Philly film and theater artists, the company collaborated with area charter schools and local musicians on videos. They staged Fringe/Live Arts productions that have become fodder for short films and vice versa. (Eye of the Tiger began as a stage production and a short video.) Their horror-core Pas de Lumiere short — winner of a National Film Challenge award for best production design in 2005 — screened at the 2006 Philadelphia Film Festival. Their Closet Space and Triptych were staged during 2003's Fringe Festival.

Everything Sweetbread does is on a tiny income, but its scope is circus-size. "That's the way we do things," said Serbu. "We work on images that get attention and communicate their ridiculous nature."

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)

Eye of the Tiger, Thrill of the Fight | Première, Fri., April 24, 7 p.m., $10-$15 (after-party features Dark Horse and the Carousels, the Tough Shits, DJs Brown and Davis), 941 Theater, 941 N. Front St., sweetbreadstudios.com