Growing up in Kuala Lumpur, filmmaker Tom Silva spent much of his free time drawing comics and going to blockbuster movies. It wasn’t until he moved to the U.S. in 1984–to study business at Long Island University–that he was introduced to the likes of Antonioni, Bergman, and Fellini. “I didn’t realize these films existed,” says the 35-year old Andersonville resident. “When I saw them, I knew that was truly where my heart lay–that it was what I truly wanted to get into.”
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After graduating in 1988, Silva bummed around New York for a couple of years, acting in off-Broadway productions and picking up skills he could use in filmmaking. He fell in love with Chicago during a 1990 visit. “There’s a romantic spirit to Chicago that I really can’t define, that speaks through the architecture,” he says. “New York has the edge, but Chicago has this incredible earthiness and rejection of pomposity and pretension that I love. There’s a real energy about this city that’s in violent opposition to the blankness of some of the suburban and rural areas, which can be so sparse and so desolate. I also love the spit-and-chew quality of Chicago theater. I thought it would be a very creative environment for me.”
The $20,000 feature was shot over 12 days in 2001, using local actors and a crew that worked for free–including cinematographer Michael Wright, who ended up kicking in some of the funds to complete it. The primary location was Silva and his wife’s former home on Schubert. “During the two or three years I was there, I barely ever met my neighbors,” he explains. “The street had the flavor of a beautiful little suburb, and yet there was none of the small-town warmth that people fly out to the suburbs in search of. It was quite isolating, and people seemed to be sort of into themselves. There is a lot going on underneath with a lot of those people.”
