St. Nick2009

When ST. NICK premiered at SXSW in 2009, it announced the arrival of Dallas-based filmmaker David Lowery as a storyteller and image-maker to watch. An intimate portrait of two young runaways wandering the beautiful and desolate landscape of East Texas, ST. NICK drops us into a lonely world seen through the anxious eyes of a pre-adolescent brother and sister fleeing a situation that the filmmaker never explains but merely suggests in the atmosphere of abandonment. "ST. NICK is like a distended version of my memories of childhood," he told Filmmaker Magazine. Lowery's cinematic landscape recalls the stark beauty of Terrence Malick's early heartland cinema. The vivid performances suggest Francois Truffaut's gift for exploring the lives of troubled children. And the imagery, the tone and the textures he captures all look forward to his second feature, AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTS. Lowery accomplishes it all with minimal dialogue and a budget of $12,000: "When you're working with a smaller budget… you're able to take chances with style and content." - Sean Axmaker