1968. Greaves and his crew are auditioning acting students for a couple breaking scene in Central Park. As the movie unfolds, it turns out that there is no script and actors have to improvise. The director captures their interactions among themselves, with the crew, and with passers-by, thus showing what goes on before and behind the camera. With time, an exhausted crew begin to question the director’s criteria and deliberately seek conflict, ensues. Relying on mock cinéma vérité, Greaves experiments on a variety of film techniques. The result is a multi-layered film that tests the limits of creativity in film.
William Greaves. Described as a “Renaissance man,” William Greaves has made over 200 documentaries, winning more than 70 international film awards, including four Emmy nominations and one win. He is considered to be a key African-American independent filmmaker, who has helped launch a great many directors. Besides being a filmmaker, he is also a scriptwriter and a producer, a dancer, actor, drama teacher, and composer. His search for excellence in films has earned him a place in the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1980. Many of his works are about the extraordinary lives of once famous African-Americans who then fell into oblivion. With Steven Soderbergh and Steve Buscemi, Greaves directed Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2 ½, a sequel to the film made in 1968, with the same actors and part of the original crew.
