WEEKNIGHTS
Dir. Alfred Giancarli, 2023
United States. 68 min.
In English.

Part of BEST OF SPECTACLE 2025

FRIDAY, JANUARY 1 - 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, JANUARY 4 - 5 PM
SATURDAY, JANUARY 10 - 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, JANUARY 24 - 7:30 PM (Q&A w/ Director Alfred Giancarli)

The film follows three individuals working various graveyard shifts around a deserted urban college campus as they try to make it through another long and lonely night on the job. Through a series of fixed shots, the viewer partakes in their nightly responsibilities and rituals, underscoring the feeling of solitude imparted by the lateness of the hour, lack of human interaction, and nature of the work itself– The type critical to the function of such a place yet that often goes entirely unseen or unappreciated by its daytime inhabitants.

Giancarli draws from a rich pedigree of avant-garde filmmakers, from Tsai Ming-Liang and Gus van Sant to James Benning to Larry Gottheim, whose work is grounded in the interplay between time and location. WEEKNIGHTS is a film shaped as much by the intangibilities and rhythms of the environment captured as by its own scripted elements; one that ascribes new meaning to the psychogeographic adage that one cannot truly know a place before knowing its ghosts via the more economically-minded framework of labor seen versus unseen.

“Through lingering shots, [WEEKNIGHTS] captures the quiet isolation of graveyard shifts, empty spaces, and mundane routines. The film meditates on loneliness and the surreal atmosphere that descends on familiar places after dark.
— Charlie Sanders, Festival Programming Director, Sidewalk Film Festival

“WEEKNIGHTS distinguishes itself through its sharp sense of place and by how it captures the distinct rhythms of its environment. The film’s overall melancholy resonates, but in its own way, it acts as a tribute to its (and my) Bronx neighborhood.”
— aversaci, Letterboxd