A Hot 'Indie' Scene

'If Greg Mottola can use his parents' Dix Hills home to shoot the interiors for `Daytrippers' that's how he saves a lot of money,'' said Christopher Cooke, director of the Suffolk County Film Commission and the godfather of independent film on Long Island.

``And that goes right down the line,'' he added, ``to Hal Hartley using his father's house, his uncle's house, his cousin's house on the street where he grew up in Lindenhurst. A lot of times, it's not just that the stories are semi-autobiographical, but that the locations are available.''

Hartley, the director of ``The Unbelievable Truth,'' ``Trust'' and the upcoming ``Henry Fool,'' is a filmmaker who has attained international renown (and whose films often do better in France than in Suffolk). Mottola is one of the brighter among the rising lights of indie cinema. And they are just two of a legion of young directors who've not only been incubated by the homemade world of Long Island film, they've used it as an essential ingredient in their often very personal, low-budget and unorthodox movies. Not only are their projects set on or around Long Island, the conflicts within the films themselves often have much to do with the urban vs. suburban tensions that inform (or informed) their early lives.

While studio filmmaking may not necessarily be flourishing here, the indie scene - or quasi-indie, studio-supported, art-division scene - is hot. And the alumni are quickly becoming elder statesman of fringe film. The names include Matthew Harrison, the Port Washingtonian whose oeuvre ranges from the bowling-noir thriller ``Spare Me'' to the Sundance-honored ``Rhythm Thief'' to the off-beat comedy ``Kicked in the Head''; Edward Burns, the Valley Streamer who made ``The Brothers McMullen'' and ``She's the One,'' and Steve Buscemi, the actor (also from Valley Stream) renowned for his work with the Coen brothers, Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino, who made his directorial debut last year with the LI-inspired ``Trees Lounge.''

These are some of the better-known directors, whose ranks are being swelled by a nonstop crop of upstart would-be Scorsese/Spielbergs.

They include Jesse Feigelman, an alumnus of the Long Island Film Festival and the film school at the State University at Purchase, who worked as a sound man (on the cable series ``Remember WENN,'' for instance) before doing his first feature, ``Snapped.'' It was shot last fall in about 30 days, all over the East End - in Amagansett, Montauk and East Hampton, where (no surprise) his family has a home. Starring Gaby Hoffman, Seymour Cassel and Simon Rex, among others, the production was headquartered at the family's East Hampton place while Feigelman rented others in the off-season for the cast and crew to stay in.

``The village was incredible,'' Feigelman said, ``especially Larry Cantwell, the supervisor, and Police Chief Stonemetz. I was really surprised, because I thought the village would be implacable. But they couldn't do enough for us.''

``Snapped,'' nearly finished, is being aimed by Feigelman at the prestigious ``Director's Fortnight'' at this year's Cannes Film Festival.

Eric Mendelson's upcoming ``Judy Berlin'' will star indie darling Edie Falco, a Northport native whose credits include the recent ``Hurricane Streets'' as well as Nick Gomez' quasi-classic ``Laws of Gravity.'' It was shot in Mendelson's neighborhood, Bethpage (also in Hicksville, some in Hauppauge, some at the Old Bethpage Restoration). Mendelson, a costume designer for 10 years (eight for Woody Allen), managed to cast his film with such notables as Barbara Barrie, Bob Dishy, Madeline Kahn and Anne Meara - who had appeared in Mendelson's well-regarded short film, ``Through an Open Window.''

``Labor Day'' was filmed during September in Fire Island's Ocean Bay Park by Oakdale's Steve Race (lead actor, co-director, co-writer), Carmine Cangialosi (actor, co-director, co-writer) and executive producers Richard Davis and Kevin Holmquest. With 55 speaking parts and a main crew of between 25 and 30 people, the four have positioned themselves as the virtual Cecil B. DeMilles of LI cinema.

``Everybody involved with the film is under 25,'' Race said, ``and nobody gets shot, murdered or raped. It's a story about friends and family, there's love interest. And it's the first movie shot out there since Barbara Hershey made `Last Summer.'''

Although final touches are still being put on the film, the four are already planning to meet with MTV about remaking the movie with a major studio.

But again, everything's relative. Long Island independent filmmaking really took off in the late '80s, during the unofficial boycott of New York by the major studios - which wanted a better deal from the technical unions, the kind of deal they had in Hollywood. Eventually, they worked out a compromise with the New York locals, but the several years of the boycott, combined with the subsequent Writers Guild strike, opened the doors for independent artists such as Hartley to use the area as a springboard. Both ``The Unbelievable Truth'' and ``Trust,'' the films that made Hartley's name as a serious auteur, were shot around Lindenhurst. The example he set inspired a generation of local directors.

The support system includes people like Cooke, his Nassau counterpart, Debra Markowitz, and others such as Dick Fisher, the veteran cinematographer who's worked on ``McMullen'' as well as the more recent features ``Rum and Coke'' and ``Strong Island Boys.''

For the former, the husband and wife team of Maria Escobedo and Charles Gherardi used their Douglaston home for the shoot - and Escobedo's mother to cook for the cast and crew. For the latter, Mark Schiffer used the Melville colonial where he grew up as his production office, movie set, mess hall and dormitory. (Both films are as yet unreleased.)

``The use of Long Island is about natural resources,'' Cooke said, ``which are largely family resources, friend resources. You know, people may be going to the universities in the city to study film, but they naturally know the turf where they grew up and feel that not only is it relevant to the story they want to tell, but it's accessible as well.''