Free Pie premiering at UICA, after party to follow

The Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts will be hosting the premiere of local writer-director Caleb Slain’s short film “Free Pie” on Thursday evening at 7 p.m., followed by an after party catered by San Chez, with coffee by Rowster, live music and $2 drink specials throughout the night. The event includes several other projects by Slain as well as the team of filmmakers he works with.   

“’Free Pie’ is a traumatic comedy about life, death, pie and death,” says Slain. He explained that by traumatic comedy he means “a comedy that gets less and less funny” as the story progresses. “I say that because it’s a different kind of film. Not in a way that’s experimental or like a trippy weird thing that’s going on; there is a story that happens. But the way it plays out dramatically, there are a lot of twists and turns.”

Slain wrote the story in a script writing class in Seattle he earned a scholarship to, and it was originally written for the stage.

“That’s part of what makes ‘Free Pie’ a little bit different, because everything happens in real time, and it all happens in the same space,” says Slain.

Because of the way the script was written, they were able to perform the film for everyone involved before even shooting, something that Slain says he has “never seen before.” Doing this pre-performance allowed everyone involved to be able to get on the same page and see what Slain was trying to accomplish.

The story of is about “a mysterious man goes to tell a washed-up rocker that his father, who he thought had been dead for 20 years, had actually been alive, but just died,” says Slain. “Pie is [also] very important to the story, and it’s also important thematically as to what the film is all about. The only thing you need to know about the pie right now is that it’s rhubarb.”

In addition to the films, the after party will be open to the public, and will feature a Q&A session with Slain and the team of filmmakers he works with.

“There’s going to be a hell of an after party. It’s going to be really fun. Live music, great food [and] Rowster catering coffee," says Slain. "Rowster coffee is the best coffee in the state, period.”

The only concern Slain has is that they are going to oversell the theater. He suggests getting there early as well.

“If they oversell and no one can get in, they can come to the after party, and then during the after party we’ll do a second run of just Free Pie,” says Slain, who also expressed how grateful he was to the people he works with as well as the UICA for how hard they worked creating this event. Slain says he is looking forward to people’s reaction to the film.

“No one has seen a short film like this. Let’s put it that way," says Slain. "It is very unique. Like it or hate it, you haven’t seen anything like it.”