Amos Poe – The Foreigner – First Independent Punk feature film – value for money filmmaking

As the last post to the blog, I’ve wanted to write about a documentary I’ve seen recently called “Blank City”. It covers the No Wave and Transgression movements that took part in the late 70’s and 80’s in New York. It talks about the starting point that most directors known to this day took, when they first started making films. Due to financing being non existent an the current economical situation in New York at the time, these daring filmmakers were adopting a guerilla-style filming mixed with self-taught and experimental techniques to create their first feature films. From directors such as Jim Jarmush, Micheal Oblowitz, Richard Kern, Andy Warhol, Eric Michell and many others I would like to distinguish one work by Amos Poe titled “The Foreigner”. It was one of the first independent punk full-feature films made on an incredible low $5000 budget, staring most of the directors friends and fellow artist. Despite the rough cutting, seemingly amateur acting and filming, the movie seems to strike a great notion on the so-called illusionary American-dream and the social realities of living in a metropolis. It certainly contains its own aesthetics and the raw energy that drove filmmakers to create their work at that time.