Description:
Could the quickest route to enlightenment be straight into the gutter? FINN NORMAN (Zak Barnett) is a young man who has severed all ties with a dark past to make his home on the streets of San Francisco. In pursuit of a life free of materialism, conformity and societal expectations, he has abandoned everything to live off what others throw away. The streets become his partner in this search for true freedom, his desire to live fully and without attachment. Each new day is a revelation, but Finn is living with a secret that he is hesitant to reveal, even to himself.
We meet Finn several months after hes left everything he knew
Could the quickest route to enlightenment be straight into the gutter? FINN NORMAN (Zak Barnett) is a young man who has severed all ties with a dark past to make his home on the streets of San Francisco. In pursuit of a life free of materialism, conformity and societal expectations, he has abandoned everything to live off what others throw away. The streets become his partner in this search for true freedom, his desire to live fully and without attachment. Each new day is a revelation, but Finn is living with a secret that he is hesitant to reveal, even to himself.
We meet Finn several months after hes left everything he knew behind. He is recklessly impulsive, balanced between the anonymity of being just another invisible huddled mass, and the desire to reach out and disrupt the doldrums of passersby. But two lost souls he encounters throw his ideals and solitude into question.
GUNTHER (Lew Levinson), a sly vagabond and apparent savant, enlists himself as Finns mentor. Together they begin to explore hidden landscapes, forbidden buildings and become partners in publicly unveiling the extraordinary in the mundane. As camaraderie with Gunther develops and his daily routine solidifies, freedom evolves into connection. Finn finds himself beginning to trust.
MIA (Rebecca Noon) is a quiet, wide-eyed girl who works in a café near the street that Finn makes his home. Mias daily routine consists of a lonely apartment and an unfulfilling job. She longs for the reckless abandon she sees in Finn, and she is compelled to take him home but their passionate connection incites painful flashbacks for him. To continue to avoid his past, he is forced back out on the street where he is free to recreate his own form of amnesia. After Mias tender attempts to win his affection fail, she shames him into seeing the selfishness and isolation of his lifestyle.
Finns construct crumbling, he runs to Gunther for guidance and distraction. After they put on a Butoh inspired hobo mime street performance, Gunthers true nature is revealed and Finn is left utterly alone. His world unravels. Wracked with agony, wasting away in the harshness of his surroundings, he seeks solace with Mia but her apartment is empty, and he has nowhere left to escape to. In the morning, under a freeway overpass he sees a vision, and finds the peace hes been searching for.
Outside Films presents this unique and compelling first feature from filmmakers Gabriel Diamond, Zak Barnett and Gabriel Goldstein. LESS subtly throws assumed values into question: does happiness come from having everything you want, or by simply not wanting anything? Can we live in the moment if were not at peace with our past? Directed and shot by Diamond on the streets of San Francisco's Tenderloin District in gritty documentary style, this portrait of three outsiders shows a world both decaying and beautiful, where city streets become rivers, sidewalks are bedrooms, and passersby an audience to the blurry line between genius and madness, an unlikely romance, and the magic simplicity of a city witnessed anew.
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