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January 7 - 14, 1999

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State of the Art

The Sticky Fingers of Time

by Scott Heller

Hilary Brougher's first film did not get into the Sundance Film Festival. That's the bad news. The good news is that her funky feminist sci-fi tale The Sticky Fingers of Time begins a commercial run this week, proving to independent filmmakers here and everywhere that there's more than one way to get a movie made and seen.

For every Next Stop, Wonderland -- locally shot, launched at Sundance, sold for millions to Miramax -- there are many more Sticky Fingers. Low-budget and quirky, without stars, the film has nonetheless played scores of festivals around the world, finding a following both with gays and lesbians and with "sci-fi geeks'' like Brougher herself. "People who are into smart, weird comic books can fall into this film and enjoy the structure and the density of the ideas,'' she points out.

Science fiction on screen demands big bucks, yet Brougher wasn't interested in an F/X extravaganza. Even if she had wanted a computer-animated cel or two, she wouldn't have had the money. The whole film cost $250,000. And until the last minute, she figured she'd have to shoot on video and make it for even less than that.

Brougher and one of the film's executive producers, Ted Hope, will appear for a screening at the Coolidge Corner Theatre this Friday. The next day, they'll lead workshops at the Boston Film/Video Foundation. Brougher will talk about how she developed the script and prepared to shoot. Hope, the indie-film god who co-founded Good Machine International (Happiness, The Brothers McMullen), will offer tips on fundraising and how to pitch your project to a production company.

"It literally came together in a year,'' Brougher says, "but that's on the back of 10 years of false starts.''

She first hooked up with Good Machine when they got interested in another of her scripts, a project ultimately deemed too ambitious for a first-time director. She continued to write and work on other people's projects, many of which never saw the light of day. "I never want to be one to squash dreams, but it's impossible for me not to be pragmatic.''

When she got the new idea, a Good Machine story editor was there to help shape the script. Still, she says, financing proved difficult. "This is a science-fiction film about women writers. Can you imagine pitching that?'' Finally Hope and other advisers offered a dare: make your movie cheaply and see what happens next.

What happened is The Sticky Fingers of Time, a flawed genre blender that sends two women colliding to a fateful meeting of the minds. Tucker (Terumi Matthews), a successful pulp-novelist in the 1950s, one day finds herself in today's East Village, where she meets Drew (Nicole Zaray), a struggling writer. Fallout from the H-bomb tests, which Tucker covered as a journalist, has rendered both of them "time freaks,'' able to travel spontaneously -- and often involuntarily -- through time. Hindsight lets Drew know that Tucker is in danger. Tucker's mission is to help a fellow writer find her voice.

Brougher's cerebral conceit means Sticky Fingers will leave many viewers scratching their heads. Sundance clearly thought so. But the film's director is undeterred. "You hope for a lot, count on absolutely nothing, and go with what works.''

The Sticky Fingers of Time opens at the Coolidge Corner Theatre this Friday, January 8, with a 7 p.m. screening and a discussion with Hilary Brougher and Ted Hope. Brougher and Hope will also speak at a Boston Film/Video Foundation workshop on Saturday at 10 a.m. Call 536-1540.

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