Alissa Simon Film Critic American helmer Carson Lund uses the baseball diamond as a deeply cinematic space in his feature debut, “Eephus.” The esoteric title is the name of one of the game’s rarest pitches. “Eephus” marks the second film from the L.A.
collective Omnes Films to screen in the Directors’ Fortnight along with “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point,” which Lund shot. Film Constellation is handling sales.
The New Hampshire-born Lund grew up loving and playing baseball. When he moved to Los Angeles as a young adult, after some seven years away from the sport, he joined a recreational amateur league. “I was struck by the once-a-week relationship I developed with my teammates: there was a distinct lack of ego, just fun investment in the game,” he says. “Suddenly, I realized that all the cinematic imitations I’d tried in the past were a distraction from the raw material that’s closest to me, and that I ought to just embrace the idea of baseball devotion as a valid cinematic subject.” Set in the autumn of 1994, “Eephus” follows the progression of the final game played on a small New England baseball field before it is demolished.
The two ragtag teams of beer-swilling rec-league guys can’t quite face the implications of the field’s loss on their futures in baseball, as friends or even just friendly rivals.
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