Overlook Film Festival 2024 – Writer/director Alex Matraxia’s short film Dream Factory is tough to describe. It has no dialogue within its six minutes. Yet, it has such arresting and strange visuals that warrant a viewer’s full attention. It’s a film about, well, cinema, more specifically the role movie theaters played as cruising sites. There’s also a violent and erotic undertone.

The short opens with a close-up of a young blonde man’s face, as he stares at the movie screen. The rest of the short shifts between his viewing experience and what he sees on screen, which features a cowboy, a gangster-type character, and a blonde person whose gender is ambiguous. Our initial viewer is greeted by another silent stranger, who sits next to him and even lights his cigarette. It’s clear they plan to go home with each other, even if they don’t speak one word to the other.

While there’s no dialogue in this film, the sound design is powerful, especially the constant humming of the projector, underscoring the importance of cinema to gay culture and whatever else Matraxia might be trying to say here. He also manages to blend the erotic with an unsettling level of violence. When the two young men do kiss in the movie theater, it feels dangerous and likely was for the time period. Their clothes and the short’s grainy aesthetic capture the 1970s era. Even what they witness playing on the big screen turns deadly.

Dream Factory says a lot without its characters speaking. This is one experimental short that highlights the historical importance movie theaters played as cruising sites. There’s no straightforward narrative here. Instead, the visuals, including the constant shot of film reels, do the talking.

7 Out of 10