Jason Lobe is a filmmaker who has been active in the underground music scene in Washington, D.C. His punk rock connections there bled heavily into one of his films which made it extra fun to watch for me. Before moving to New York to further his career, he told me over email, Lobe was “juggling both music and film on and off for years” in D.C.
While he was active in the bands Bodycop and The Fordists, he was screenwriting his film Démodé (alluded to above). And while his band Jail Solidarity was playing, he was in preproduction for his film The Laughing Club.
“My focus is certainly much more on film now, especially after the pandemic,” he said.
The trailer for Démodé:
The vibes I get from Lobe’s The Laughing Club and another of his films, Restlessness, is surrealist, and then a sort of absurdist-ness from Démodé. And he’s continuing with a non-mainstream approach to his work in the future.
“Many of my current projects are my personal take on genre film, incorporating elements of movies both new and old into this notion of hopelessness about the future and being consumed by nostalgia. This ghost short screenplay I am sitting on is unnerving and sad.” He has a draft of a time travel screenplay and is writing “a giallo/slasher movie in which the paranoia of killings exacerbates characters’ feelings of being downwardly mobile.”
The teaser for The Laughing Club:
Lobe’s short film Restlessness is available for streaming through The Film-maker’s Cooperative VOD, “the first non-profit art organization devoted to the collection and dissemination of experimental film and media art,” according to its website. “I am protective of my work and am thrilled to support DIY infrastructure for digital distribution,” Lobe said.
The trailer for Restlessness:
Besides keeping busy editing trailers for upcoming films at Spectacle Theater in NY (“Those are a whole lot of fun,” he said), Lobe hasn’t totally left playing music: he’s contributing vocals to a music project alongside the guy who scored Restlessness.
Check out Lobe’s list of film work at his IMDB page.
Photo: Jason Lobe at Korchfest (D.U.)
