Marrow, the second feature from Seattle filmmaker Matt Wilkins, screens at Northwest Film Forum for two nights, on Tuesday, January 24 and Wednesday, January 25, with director Wilkins in attendance. I wrote a profile of Wilkins and his film for the film’s local debut at SIFF 2011. I reprint the feature, originally published in Seattle Weekly on Wednesday, May 18, 2011, below.
Visit the NWFF website for showtimes and ticket information.
Matt Wilkins has no illusions about independent filmmaking. It’s no way to get rich or famous. “I’d venture to guess that 90 percent of low-budget independents do not make money,” he says. “Some people would even say that percentage is higher. So I’ve been freelancing all these years, working on Web promos, municipal videos, legal depositions, city council meetings, and now reality TV.”
But not just any TV show: Wilkins is currently a producer and story editor for the creepily addictive A&E hit Hoarders, produced by Seattle’s Screaming Flea Productions. His job covers everything from setting up the location shoots to interviews to editing stories from the raw video. “It’s about crazy people, and I’m good at that,” he laughs.
Between freelance gigs, Wilkins is driven to make movies: personal, intimate, unsettling films about the stresses and strains of family. Marrow, his second feature, explores the fragility—physical and emotional—of kin, similar to his first feature (Buffalo Bill’s Defunct, seen at SIFF ’04), but with greater cinematic confidence and dramatic intensity.
Read More “Cluttered Homes and Haunted Houses: Matt Wilkins and ‘Marrow’”