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Date: 7/27/2022
AGAWAM — A new film short from Agawam native Mick Gorley will debut at Greenfield Garden Cinemas on Aug. 6. Gorley, who now lives and works in New York, wrote and directed “Captis,” the second in a trilogy of short films centered around a mysterious crime family.
The first short film of the trilogy, 2021’s “Periculum” takes as its premise a famous Al Pacino line: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” The protagonist, Ares Holt (played by Christopher Brian) is living with his boyfriend, Bennet (Matthew Menendez). It is clearly a relatively new relationship because when Ares says “I love your parents,” Bennet replies, “When will I meet yours?”
Seconds later there’s a pounding on the door, and in barge two characters we soon learn are Ares’ older twin brother and sister (Justin Schilling and Tali de Assis). They’ve come to recall their younger sibling, who has been away from “the family” for three years, on something like a mafia Rumspringa. It’s implied that he is needed to aid in the family’s business: crime. What makes the skittish young Ares, who seems a bit scrawny next to his sister, and downright puny in contrast to his brother, such a valuable asset to some mobsters is not disclosed.
But the viewer gets the impression that there is some unnatural force at play here. And as they’ll learn in “Captis,” the trilogy’s “true enemy has not yet shown his face.”
Gorley is the nom de plume of Michaela Calabrese, whose mother is Agawam City Councilor and state Senate candidate Cecelia Calabrese, who was also the producer of “Captis.” Gorley, who uses they pronouns, says they chose their grandmother’s maiden name as a pen name so they could better “stand on [their] own two feet.”
Gorley said they “think it’s interesting how the Italian culture and filmmaking kind of dovetail into each other,” but says there’s no direct parallel between the fictional Holt family and life in the Calabrese house.
“I have a very, like, loving, supportive family,” said Gorley. “So that one was a little bit more of a struggle, to understand people who were so estranged from each other, because I do have a very strong unit. I kind of had to pull from imagination … how do I think this would happen? So that was a little bit of a struggle.”
“You grow up in a certain space so you have an idea of who you are. But once you have to grow up and leave that space, who you are tends to change, and then you have to find other ways to define yourself,” Gorley added. “I grew up in this small town and I kind of thought I had a good handle on who I was. But once I grew up and had to move to New York, suddenly it was like, things I thought I understood about myself were maybe a little bit harder to understand. And things I didn’t think would change about myself did I’m changing.”
“Captis” premieres at 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 6 at Greenfield Garden Cinemas, 361 Main St., Greenfield, followed by the feature-length film “Bullet Train.” Gorley, and other cast and crew members, will be available for a question and answer session after the showing.
For more information about “Captis,” visit the film’s Instagram page @captis_film.