by Joe Buffaloe
Daily Lobo
Within us all breathes the ability to love and the desire to strap the objects of our affection to a wall with masking tape.
This is the world of local filmmaker Aaron Hendren, a 33-year-old Albuquerque native who recently graduated from UNM and will be screening three short films at Cinema Cafe in Santa Fe on Tuesday.
His 18-minute film "Fetish," which will premiere at the screening, is about a man who becomes sexually fixated on masking tape. When his girlfriend fails to understand the depth of his feelings, he turns to an ex-flame. She provides an outlet for his fetish, but being on the receiving end of it takes her to a frightening place in the end.
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Hendren admits he has a sick, warped sense of humor, but he also cautions that his movies often sound sillier than they are.
Two other films by Hendren will be screened. The six-minute "How to Make Friends and Be Popular" is a satire of educational films of the 1950s. The 18-minute film "Stuck" is about a man in the middle of a crime spree who must save a woman held hostage by a sociopath.
Rounding out the event will be "Lentigo," a 23-minute film by Lauren Brazil about a man learning to live on the lonely path of ordinary life with the help of a stranger who has been diagnosed with cancer. Hendren was closely involved with work on the production.
Though Hendren directed, produced and wrote the music to all three of his short films, he said he considers himself a writer rather than a filmmaker.
"When I started making films I had no idea what I was doing," he said. "But by now I've gotten near-competent as a director."
He would like to step away from directing to focus on writing as soon as he gets the chance, he said.
Hendren has written scripts for two films - "Bollocky Simper" and "Albuquerque Denver Phoenix" - which have been screened internationally as well as in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.
"If people like the writing in my movies, I'm cool," he said. "The beast has definitely gotten bigger over the past few years, though. We're using better equipment now, and a lot more people are involved in the production." He is thankful to the casts of his films. He describes Babak Tafti, a UNM student who stars in "Stuck" and "Fetish," as his favorite actor - not in Albuquerque, or New Mexico, but his favorite actor, period.
Of the three short films he has directed, he is most excited about "Fetish."
"I'd like to get it into a really big festival. I think it will have a really good year."
