2-25-11: Maryland Morning Screen Test Presents Josh Slates

Josh Slates. Photo by Christopher Moore.

It was a fun–and apparently “eerie“–Tuesday evening at The Windup Space, where The Signal‘s Aaron Henkin interviewed filmmaker Josh Slates and screened some of his films for this month’s Maryland Morning Screen Test.

Regular WYPR listeners might recognize Josh Slates from his role as roving movie reporter for The Signal–he’s filed from film festivals from Toronto to Telluride. Cineastes may recognize the magazine he edits, Travels Through Elsewhere Cinema.

Slates has also written and directed a number of his own short films. Among them are 2006’s Ponkutsu Park, an NYPD Blue-meets-Otakon work that premiered at the Maryland Film Festival and went on to screen at the Short Film Corner at the 59th Cannes Film Festival; and Exasperado, an offbeat look at one woman’s proactive response to getting dumped. Baltimore’s City Paper named Exasperado 2003’s Best Indie Film.

Slates’s first feature-length film, Small Pond, will make its festival premiere later this year.

All photographs by Christopher Moore. Please check out his other work, too.

Also to check out: the band Lands and Peoples, whose people Caleb Moore designed our snazzy Screen Test poster.

Aaron Henkin, Josh Slates, and "Exasperado" actress Heather Rounds

Josh Slates and actress Rachel Anne Warren.

Ponkutsu Park meets Putty Hill: Josh Slates and November Screen Test guest Matt Porterfield.