Obscure Object Films copyright 2009
a film by Stephen Dirkes
Dirty Martini, Paul Richard, Fabien Sagard, Rebecca Trent
Photographed by Tal Shpantzer
Lighting Design by Miklos Buk
Hair and Makeup Masha Gvozdov
Styling by Ayka

Burlesque star Dirty Martini to Host World Premier Screening Party of Filmmaker Stephen Dirkes "the Object" at the Slipper Room, NYC Friday October 9th 8pm

Obscure Object Films announces the release of Stephen Dirkes short film The Object, starring burlesque star Dirty Martini and Paul Richard. This 5 minute film shot on location in Brooklyn and Long Island City follows a protagonist whose lust for women unattainable leads the viewer from stop action animation to a live action set reminiscent of the best of 1930s cabaret.

Combing stop-motion animation and live-action with photographer, Tal Shpantzer, creates a quirky brilliance that has received the thumbs up in festivals, screenings, installations and live VJ/DJ sets from audiences as varied as those at the Chelsea Museum to the connoisseurs of the Lower East Side's Slipper Room, including Filmmaker, John Waters.

Stephen and Dirty met DJ/VJing and Dancing respectively at the Slipper Room and next on the set of a Terry Richardson shoot and creative sparks flew as they do on any fashion shoot. The Francophonic lovely has returned to New York and the arms of her obsessed pursuers as embodied by the painter and now actor, Paul Richard. He and a cast of French men on holiday pursue their fantasies of the billowing blonde who is recently returned from a turn in Tournee, a film by and starring Matthieu Almaric, which is slated for screening in Cannes.

A filmmaker, composer and artist Stephen Dirkes has firmly planted himself in the New York scene after global residencies as far flung as Prague, Indonesia, Korea and Brazil. His multi-channel video installations are often combined with live VJ sets and have made him the resident VJ of the Chelsea Art Museum's Summer Soirees Rooftop Series. As a multi-disciplinary artist Dirkes started quite young, attending the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto and the University of Michigan while in his teens.

Paul Richard plays Hank, the brooding artist whose baroque world Ms. Martini inhabits through a twisted melange of emotional states expressed through deft technological collage. The film also features a performance from Rebecca Trent, owner of the Creek theatre space and Fabien Sagard as Dirty Martini’s young french lover in his first film role.