Downtown Filmmakers Fight the Man, Man

Revolution foments in the basement of CB's 313 Gallery. Tattooed kids in black masks rig plastique to alarm clocks while horn-rimmers commingle at the bar with their dog-eared copies of Fanon, pasting up copy for the latest communique. A DJ lays down the heavy monster sound. Guys throw free fists into the air.

Well, the DJ was real, blaring 20 years' worth of vinyl. But the fists held either drinks or cigarettes or videocameras, if they weren't sheathed in leather pockets, as the television showed footage of The People's alleged rebirth in Seattle last winter. The horn-rims were real, too.

Matt Pizzolo's been around the first world to promote and screen his collective's independent movie, Threat, ostensibly a story about the disadvantaged and disaffected punk rock and hiphop tribes forging bonds after their consciousnesses get raised through violence and repression. The feature-length Threat centers around a homeless white punk rocker named Jim and his black comic-store comrade, Fred, who's struggling to raise a family and wake people up to injustice. On the path to enlightenment is omnidirectional violence?straight-edge kids in brawls, robbery, thuggery of all types, Alec Empire "riot sounds" (which induce riots, ja), people getting shot.

The 25-year-old Pizzolo, his 26-year-old partner Katie Nisa and their King's Mob Productions have accomplished the daunting feat of transferring their vision to celluloid for next to no money?and with no permits?in the middle of Manhattan. Actors included local scene fixtures, like Kneel Rubenstein from the defunct Long Island hardcore band Irony of Lightfoot; Hempstead rapper Kamouflage; and Keith "Wild Child" Middleton from Stomp, who was cast after Katie accosted him on St. Marks Place. Matt took a job at a film co-op in exchange for borrowing the equipment used to film Threat. Katie waited tables at 7A in addition to working a grocery store job. Locations in the movie?See Hear, St. Marks Comics?were places where the King's Mob held down jobs. Hard to beat that as a DIY origin myth.

After taking Threat, which has no distribution besides King's Mob, to sundry places across America and Europe, the Mob is keeping its pinky in New York's navel with an engagement through February at the 313 Gallery. Meanwhile, Pizzolo and Nisa are attempting a 15-city nationwide tour called DIY Fest. Through hypertext mark-up word of mouth, the Mob has found a coterie of like-minded artists and musicians to spread the message.

"I think it's possible to be a critical mass of counterculture," Nisa says. "Be self-motivated, not mainstream, not corporate."

To hear them tell it, the Fest is about combating the overwhelming isolation faced by Creative Youth in the face of the monolithic forces of the suit-and-tie world, which threaten to slam the hammer down for good at any minute.

The premise is shaky. If you simply don't feel "isolated," can Threat be more than just a very violent entertainment? Matt and Katie said they had a hard time believing such a thing is possible.

"That's hard. It's a very confrontational movie," Matt says.

"There's a reason why we chose to tell the story like this," Katie adds. "I don't know what that reason is, but it is why we chose to tell it in this medium."

This evening, though, is white as the driven snow.

"It's a problem," Matt says, eyes darting about. "We're building a process, opening a forum."

Katie speaks bluntly. "I'm not a missionary. I'm white, from a white scene."

DIY Fest has attracted performers like Brigette Moore from Black Grrrl Revolution, I'm assured. She was supposed to perform that night, but she got stuck in Brooklyn, and didn't.

Before Threat screened that evening?the first time in New York since a packed July 1999 showing at the Cooler?a white kid in a Lyricist Lounge t-shirt and with a potholder on his head paced around onstage, gripping a microphone and asking the soundman to turn up the beat and his vocals in his monitor. He's a DIY Fester, a rapper named Shipwreck, whose Sadat X-esque voice "opens a vortex," as he puts it. Like the guys in Dead Prez, he's a vegan. He spat for an eternity, insisting between songs that he was promoting a "conscious," anticorporate alternative, but his fast rhyming provided little independent verification.

Music, art, youth and revolution?why should we believe you this time? Katie and Matt link the project at hand to the WTO/IMF/World Bank protests in Seattle and DC. It's a huge endeavor, a question of perception of possibilities.

"We just have to trust in the process," Katie insists, undaunted by millions of patronizing smirks. "We're building a long-term network of self-sustaining, DIY creators."

Matt adds: "Making DIY a career option."

Threat screens sporadically through Feb. 23. For scheduling, contact CB's 313 Lounge, 677-0455. www.diyfest.com.