“Eraserhead Is the North Star” | Albert Birney, OBEX
In pre-internet 1987, Conor Marsh and his dog Sandy live a life of seclusion, lost in the slow-rendering graphics of early Macs and televisions aglow with late night horror movie marathons. But when he begins playing OBEX—a new and mysterious, state-of-the-art computer game—he finds himself trapped in a low-tech, high-stakes analog hellscape as the line between reality and game blurs.
The latest feature from independent-film veteran Albert Birney (Strawberry Mansion, Sylvio), who writes, directs, edits, and stars, OBEX is a lo-fi fantasy about nostalgia, gaming, and analog technology, filmed in monochromatic black-and-white by cinematographer Pete Ohs, who also served as co-writer and co-editor.
Screening Tuesday, May 6, at 9:45 p.m., at the Chicago Critics Film Festival (May 2–8, at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago), it’s an ingenious, entrancingly surreal sci-fi discovery—and will get a theatrical release from Oscilloscope Laboratories later this year.
Ahead of OBEX screening at the festival, Birney graciously took the time to answer this year’s CCFF filmmaker questionnaire. Below, his individual responses.
Courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories.
How did you first become interested in filmmaking? What was your path toward directing your first film?
Growing up, my friends and I would make short films with my dad’s camcorder. It was all very crude—editing in camera and finding props in the attic—but the joy I felt when we would play these “films” back, showing other friends what we had made, got me hooked. Years later, I found a Bolex camera in a dumpster behind the Johns Hopkins Hospital. I moved to Rochester, NY, and began making The Beast Pageant. My friends and I built sets out of papier-mâché and recycled wood. What we lacked in money and a script, we made up for in sheer determination. Four years later, we had a movie.
What inspired you to make the film you're bringing to the festival?
We got our dog in 2021, the same year the 17-year cicadas were coming up out of the ground in Baltimore. Somehow, these two occurences smashed together in my head. A year later, Pete Ohs was in town; we met up in my backyard, and I told him the idea for OBEX. We outlined the first 20 scenes of the movie and, a few months later, Pete returned, and we filmed the first half of the movie. A year later, he returned again, and we filmed the second half.
Tell us about a film that you consider a guiding influence (whether it has informed your overarching vision as a filmmaker, directly informed the title you're bringing to the festival, or both).
Eraserhead. Throughout my life, I revisit it. The first feature film I made in 2010, The Beast Pageant, was inspired by Eraserhead. Now, many years over, OBEX is inspired by it as well. It’s a film that will forever influence me. The feeling I get watching it is so unique. Like witnessing someone else’s nightmare. There’s something so pure and enduring about the film. All of Lynch’s films inspire me, but Eraserhead is the North Star.
Tell us about a location that's held significance to the film you're bringing to the festival: a setting where filming took place, a geographic area that provided a source of inspiration, or another type of space that comes to mind for you in thinking about the film. What made this place so special?
The woods where the second half of the film takes place are the woods behind the house I grew up in. I spent countless hours as a child running through these woods, playing games with friends. My mom grew up playing in these woods as well. She used to tell us that there were fairies in these woods, which I’m sure is why there are fairies in OBEX.
The theatrical experience brings us together to celebrate artistic experience and expand our horizons as human beings. Tell us about a memorable theatrical experience from your life.
Watching Inland Empire with a packed house in Rochester, NY, at the Dryden Theater at the George Eastman Museum. For the first 20 minutes or so, I felt like Lynch had totally lost his mind. The video looked crappy, everything felt cheap. And then, all of a sudden. there was a low rumbling on the soundtrack, the theater began vibrating, and it all clicked for me. For the next few hours, I was totally under the spell of the movie, amazed by what I was witnessing. Hanging around in the lobby afterwards, it was clear others were as captivated as I was. A truly memorable night.