Our Story

Ruins is the prequel to a feature-length film entitled A Mechanical Framework, which will find its focus in and around a fictionalized after-hours lounge where New York City's occult community gathers. 

Framework, the feature length film that will be made after Ruins, posits that a union-like system controls and manages the psychic community in New York City, and that amidst this environment of parasitic undergrowth, a woman is ostracized by that community because of a true gift they believe she possesses - something genuine - something alluded to - but something which ultimately remains a question unanswered. It is here, in our atmospheric film noir, that Adelaide (our shunned heroin) and Hank (our protagonist) first meet. Hank, the new waiter at Lily's Cafe and a recent transplant to New York City, is asked one destined evening to cover for the missing night-shift waitress. As the cafe's owner drinks himself to sleep, Hank stumbles innocently upon the after-hours lounge located in Lily's basement. Entering this surreal landscape, Hank is mistaken as the replacement waiter, and is quickly immersed in this obscure, mystical community, where the laws and regulations above ground relate little to those of this ancient subculture. A Mechanical Framework follows Hank and Adelaide after a series of events lead them both into a seemingly never-ending whirlwind of murder, blackmail and treachery.

RUINS, the movie that has already been made and is awaiting completion, is the preface to A Mechanical Framework and portrays the parallel origin stories of our two protagonists before they meet on that destined (and clandestine) evening months into the future.

Hank aspires to something bigger than what his small New England town can facilitate. With previous responsibilities no longer keeping him in this deteriorating environment, he decides to pack up his life, and move to New York City, the Big Apple. If he can make it in New York City, he can make it anywhere. But then again, anywhere would be better than his hometown.

Adelaide, a tarot card reader in Washington Heights (a neighborhood located in upper Manhattan), is being forced out of her apartment - her home as well as her place of business - because of soaring rents in a neighborhood on the verge of gentrification. On the eve of her eviction, after offers have been made, murder lingers on the horizon, and the ball has been placed in her court, Adelaide begins to doubt that she can survive without accepting the double-edged hand-out offered to her by the "businessmen" that run the occult community in New York City.

Both Hank and Adelaide are in tough positions and are trying to get out and away from bad influences and corrupt systems, trying to better their lives through some form of forward momentum. But before our characters can move on they are forced to do something, the consequences of which hurt others. Ruins is metonymic in that it is the story of what we can and can't forget, the ruins of our memory.

WE NEED YOUR HELP!

What We Need & What You Get

• Ian Hassett: Writer/Director
  
• Robert Ronny: Producer
  
• Matthew A. Novak: Cinematography
  
• Kelsey Sundberg: Production Design
  
• Sean Baker: Production Manager
  
• Ben Lacker: Original Score
  
• Gregory Scott Brockman: Production Sound
  
• Melody Idakaar: Art Direction
  
• Mary Helen Davis: Costumes
  
• Dionisio Cortes: Animations
  
• Stephan Bookas: 1st Assistant Camera
  
• Oliver Jevremov: 2nd Assistant Camera
  
• Crystal Jailal: Makeup
  
• Jesse Finnegan: Production Assistant
  
• Robert Leon Josephs: Production Assistant