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BOWL OF OATMEAL
Short film | 9:23 min | USA | 1996 |16 mm


Film stream available at play loud's archive & store
Info Sheet

 

Directed & produced by Lawrence Gise, Dietmar Post, David Patrick White, Leslie Hucko, Matthew Bezanis, Hsia-Huey Wu.

Bowl of Oatmeal was the final project, a group work, done by six students during an eleven-week intensive film course at New York University,
which has become a classic of American underground cinema.

"A lonely man on the brink of emotional desolation talks to his Oatmeal."


Press Quotations

"Bowl of Oatmeal is about a seriously disturbed loner who imagines (?) that his only friend is his talking bowl of oatmeal. When the guy begins to unhealthily obsess over what he can do with meat, a rift is driven between them. In tone and thematics, the absurd, pathetic alienation and insanity of this story brings "Eraserhead" to mind, but it's definitely it's own beast.
(Cinematery)

"Bowl of Oatmeal, a rare group effort led by Dietmar Post, is the tale of a hermit in the throes of a nervous breakdown who receives advice from a sly, articulate bowl of oatmeal with a Bostonian accent."
Michael Simmons, L.A. Weekly

"Desperate people who hate making decisions will take advice from just about anywhere ... mail-order evangelists, psychics, politicians, breakfast food. A morbidly fascinating look at the effect two of the major food groups have on a lonely man's life."
Chicago Underground Film Festival

"A lonely man on the brink of emotional desolation begins to hear voices emanating from his breakfast cereal, guiding him to get a hobby. Against his oatmeal's better judgment, he takes on a new pastime involving stolen meat."
New York Underground Film Festival

"Who ever thought a conversation with a bowl of oatmeal would make for intriguing cinema? Bowl of Oatmeal is the story of a paranoid shut-in who tries to take advice from his kvetching breakfast. The camera work is basic, but the dry humor of the script keeps things moving."
Neil Gladstone, Philadelphia City Paper

"Atmospheric and strangely compelling."
Fangoria


Pietro González


Pietro González, a well known American-Chilean actor from New York with a long trajectory in theater, has recently appeared in Sydney Pollack's "The Interpreter", with Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman.
Pietro could also recently be seen in the play "Severity of a Tyrant's Tale" from Vargas Llosa, at the Spanish Repertory Theater in New York. The New York Times wrote:
"Pietro González (an actor who looks disconcertingly like a diminutive Mikhail Gorbachev) plays Joaquín Balaguer, Trujillo's longtime second-in-command and powerful successor with the craft of a master plotter awaiting his chance."
(New York Times, Bruce Weber, March 11, 2003).


Film festivals


UFVA Student Film and Video Festival in Philadelphia (USA), 1996; 10th Stuttgart Filmwinter (Germany), 1997; 4th New York Underground Film Festival (USA), 1997; Philadelphia Underground Film Festival (USA), 1997; 4th Hollywood Underground Forum (USA), 1997 ; 4th Chicago Underground Film Festival (USA), 1997; 2nd 1 Reel Film Festival-The Seattle Arts Festival (USA), 1997; 15th Central Florida Film and Video Festival (USA), 1997; Festival Internacional Valdivia Cine & Video (Chile), 1997; Cultureel centrum't Paard in The Hague (Netherlands), 1997; Taboo Film Festival Amsterdam (Netherlands), 1997; Circles of Confusion-3rd World Wide Film&Video Festival Berlin (Germany), 1997; 5th Chicago Underground Film Festival (USA), 1998 (together with CLOVEN HOOFED); Ohio Independent Film Festival (Cleveland, USA), 1998 (together with CLOVEN HOOFED); Interfilm - 14. Internationales Kurzfilmfestival Berlin (Germany), 1998; 12th Espoo Cine International Film Festival (Espoo/Helsinki, Finland), 2001; 2. Pornfilmfestival Berlin (Germany), 2007; hofHaus Short Film Festival (Germany), 2007


Awards


Winner of the Director's Choice Award at the UFVA Student F&V Festival in Philadelphia, 1996; 3rd Winner of the Audience Award "eject" at 14.International Kurzfilmfestival Berlin (Germany), 1998.

 

Movie theaters and film festivals can book the original 16mm print at [email protected]