Mumblecore

I have to admit the "mumblecore" tag given to a certain trend in independent filmmaking didn't sound all that appealing to me. Not all the filmmakers who get tagged with it have selected it for themselves, said Mary Bronstein, and a few of them feel it pigeonholes them.

But most, she said, believe it might get their films more attention on the festival circuit than if they were just one of the many. After all, festivals usually have far more entries than any one person can see, and anything that helps a film stand out can help.

Bronstein said the mumblecore movement is broader than just the collective of filmmakers that includes her husband Ronald Bronstein, Joe Swanberg, Greta Gerwig and others in their circle of friends and colleagues. A sound man for another independent filmmaker coined the phrase, Bronstein believes, and it usually indicates that a film was shot with a hand-held digital video camera for very little money, with natural lighting, containing a good amount of improvisational dialogue and having an intimate style.

"My film does have a similar style, but I feel like there's a separation in the themes," Bronstein said of "Yeast."

"I feel like the emotional level of my film is very intensified," she said. "All the 'mumblecore' films are very different."

But the natural lighting and small budget applies here. "My film cost fifteeen hundred dollars," Bronstein said. "That's just production, not counting transfers and taking it to festivals."

She's able to do this only because she and her colleagues work on each other's films, for no money. They all have other jobs. In addition to a degree in drama from New York University, Bronstein has a psychology degree, and works as a play therapist for a hospital.

"Nights and Weekends," by Joe Swanberg, has much more of subdued quality than "Yeast." It's a moving depiction of a long-distance relationship in a difficult and awkward stage. Swanberg co-stars with Greta Gerwig, who is also in Bronstein's film.

If you attended last year's festival and saw "Frownland," by the way, Bronstein played the female love interest of the main character. "Frownland" was directed by her husband, Ronald Bronstein. While it could be called a "mumblecore," it was shot on film, she noted.