Watch The Dark Side, a Film Shot During a Hurricane in New York City

    NEW YORK, NY, August 23, 2017 /24-7PressRelease/ -- When the lights go out in the East Village during Hurricane Sandy, Dan (Edoardo Ballerini) falls and butt-dials his ex-girlfriend who also happens to be named Sandy (Ali Ahn) and takes it as a sign he should go visit her on the Upper West Side. On the documentary side, fire fighters whose homes were destroyed during the hurricane in the largest residential fire in New York City relate their experiences and look through the remains of what were once their homes. The Dark Side contains never-before-seen footage of the fire shot by a NYFD Fire Marshal who recounts his experience filming in the middle of the fire as his own home and those of his neighbors are destroyed. The filmmaker states: "People always ask me how could I possibly put together in one film these two radically different approaches to the same event, to which I can only reply: watch the film."

Responding to the storm, director Richard Ledes began gathering a small crew without any advance notice and shooting footage of actor Edoardo Ballerini (The Sopranos) during the blackout of the East Village. When he returned home later that evening and looked at the footage he began to formulate the story.

Mimicking the hurricane's capacity to cross boundaries, interviews with firefighters who lost their homes during Sandy are intercut with the romantic comedy. The resulting clash of genres creates unexpected juxtapositions that illuminate both the global and local dimensions of the storm.

The Dark Side cast includes Edoardo Ballerini (HBO's Boardwalk Empire, The Sopranos, CBS' Elementary), Ali Ahn (Hulu's The Path, Showtime's Billions, The Heidi Chronicles on Broadway), Fred Melamed (Hail, Caesar, A Serious Man, Showtime's House of Lies, HBO Girls), Emily Tremaine (HBO's Vinyl, Guil, The Wolf of Wall Street) and Erin Darke (Good Girls Revolt, Homeland, We Need to Talk About Kevin). The cinematographer is Valentina Caniglia (Trifles for a Massacre, Madeline's Oil).

You can watch it here.

Richard Ledes is a New York City filmmaker. He recently completed NO HUMAN IS ILLEGAL, a feature documentary about the refugees currently detained on the Greek island of Lesvos. In 2004 his feature fiction film A HOLE IN ONE was nominated for Best Narrative Feature at the Tribeca Film Festival. In 2008 his feature fiction film THE CALLER won Best NY Narrative Feature at the Tribeca Film Festival and in 2012 his feature fiction film FRED WON'T MOVE OUT was nominated for Best North American Independent Film at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

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