Heat and Sunlight

Every once in a while, a little film comes along that breaks new ground. Heat and Sunlight is that kind of effort. Shot on 90,000$ on 1/2 Beta video in a mere 60 hours, the film is a manie look at modern relationships that marries the fee! of a John Cassavetes film with the immediacy of the six o'clock news. There's even a bit of Woody Allen. Writer-director Nilsson calls his style "direct action cinema", first developed with his Signal 7. It's a technique that makes a rather mundane story carne to life. The action takes place over a 24-hour period. A fortyish photographer, obsessed with a beautiful dancer named Carmen and the starving Biafrans he encountered in Nigeria 17 years earlier, is celebrating his birthday alone. Re's depressed. Re's hurt. He thinks nobody loves him. Nilsson's script, only 30 pages long, was just a starting point for the cast. All the dialog was improvised during the shoot. (Variety, 28.10.1987)