Oscilloscope Laboratories Tabs May 27 For The Blu-ray And DVD Release Of Writer/Director Matt Porterfield's Two Films By Matt Porterfield: Hamilton And Putty Hill

Oscilloscope Laboratories has a double feature lined up for delivery on both Blu-ray and DVD on May 27.   Titled Two Films by Matt Porterfield: Hamilton and Putty Hill, cinema fans will get a look-see at Baltimore-based indie filmmaker Matt Porterfield’s first two films.

In April of 2006, Porterfield delivered his self-produced first film, Hamilton, to the Wisconsin Film Festival for its debut.   He had worked on it for two solid years and that might have been the beginning and end of it, but then Chris Kalenbach of the Baltimore Sun got behind the film for a feature piece timed for the Maryland Film Festival during early May.  That changed everything!

Drawn from his own experiences growing up in Baltimore, Porterfield’s Hamilton is the story about two days in the lives of a young — who are new parents — couple by the names of Lena (Stephanie Vizzi) and Joe (Christopher H. Myers) who have little going for them … and by film’s end we come to care about them (and their future), but have little sense (deliberately so) as to what is to come.  Sad.  Perhaps best not to know.

Porterfield was now on the arthouse radar and got several screenings of his film at the Anthology Film Archives in New York City in August.   The New Yorker Magazine said of the film, “One of the most original, moving and accomplished American independent films in recent years.”

It then opened theatrically on October 6 at the Rotunda Cinematheque in Baltimore for a one-week engagement.   Held over!   An independent arthouse film from an unknown director held over for a second week!   But wait, it gets better … Hamilton was held over for a third week!!

His next film, Putty Hill, opened at the Berlin International Film Festival in February of 2010 and worked the festival circuit for a solid year before opening theatrically in February of 2011.

Porterfield did not start out to make Putty Hill, but rather a film project titled Metal Gods, but beyond the talking and planning stages it never developed.   And then something clicked and he was able to revisit some of the cast selections and shot the entire film in six weeks. 

He just needed the “hook,” which took the form of friends coming together for the funeral of a young man named Cory who died of a drug overdose.   

Two Films by Matt Porterfield: Hamilton and Putty Hill will be available for the first time on Blu-ray from O’Scope on May 27.   A DVD resissue will also be released the same date (out of print since 2011).