Courtney's films have a great lo-fi aesthetic and you can always count on his taste for unusual stories and other worldly characters. His latest project, a short film called The Hole (co-directed by Billy Feldman) looks at the alien landscape of a small section of New York City that is partially flooded and according to legend was a mobster dumping ground for knocked off goons. Its a great short with some awesome sound design - that plays like Gummo meets Fata Morgana. - The Documentary Blog

Selected Press

SYNOPSIS

Consisting of five blocks around the Brooklyn-Queens border, 'The Hole' or sometimes referred to as 'The Jewel Streets', is a a neighborhood full of contradiction and mystery, an area lost in time, evoking images of both the Wild West and a post-apocalyptic future. Thirty feet below sea level, home to the Federation of Black Cowboys of New York, and infamous for being the location where several corpses linking back to Mafia related murders were dug up by excavation teams, all plans to restore, rebuild, and raise 'The Hole' were dropped, leaving the neighborhood to slowly crumble away and sink deeper into the swampy, cesspool landscape in which it resides. An antithesis of glossy New York City, 'The Jewel Streets' area is a surreal landscape consisting of abandoned homes, broken down vehicles, and swampy patches of open land where chickens run free and Cowboys patrol on horseback. The surrealism lies in the fact that just twenty minutes away, resides one of the biggest and most powerful cities in the world.

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT:

Our main objective for the film was to obtain a better understanding of life in 'The Hole' and how the conditions of the neighborhood have affected the residents who live in the flooded community. Set on the murky border between Brooklyn and Queens, 'The Hole' is a culturally significant community that continues to be overlooked, ignored, and seemingly forgotten by the rest of the city. Home to the Federation of Black Cowboys and infamous for being a body dumping ground for the mafia, 'The Hole' is a historic neighborhood surrounded by mystery.

When approaching the subject, we maintained a solid understanding that the point of the film would not be to debunk, solve, or prove any rumors, mysteries, or stories that revolves around 'The Hole'. Instead, our main aim was to document the unique personalities of various residents and allow them to share their world with us. Through their stories, anecdotes, and personalities, a tightly-knit tapestry of American life was able to be created. We felt that the mystery of 'The Hole' was as important a subject as the residents themselves, and worked passionately to respect that mystery. In the end, we worked to capture both the beauty and devastation that lurks down each flooded street of 'The Hole'.

Overshadowed by one of the largest cities in the world, 'The Hole' is a desolate landscape of decay, abandonment, and crumbling foundations. After observing the conditions of the community, one can not help but wonder if 'The Hole' is simply a metaphor for lost dreams and the economic struggles we, as a society are faced with today.

'The Hole' - 9 min. HD

A Film by Courtney Sell & Billy Feldman

Cinematographer: Ashley Conner

Sound: Nathan Maxwell Cann

Music: Carl Simmons and Gregor Sayet-Bone