The Cage
2017 · 15m · USA
Directed by Ricky Staub
Genres: drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tense
A young man growing up on the streets of North Philadelphia must navigate violence, poverty, and death, finding his only possible escape through basketball. Shot entirely with non-actors from the actual neighborhood.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Ricky Staub put real North Philly residents in front of his camera before he went and made a Netflix feature — this is the document of a filmmaker discovering that the people already living the story are better than any actor you'd cast.
Staub's non-actor approach gives this North Philadelphia survival story a documentary grain that elevates it above the redemption-arc commercial it might have been. Filmsupply-sponsored but genuinely felt — Bahrani-adjacent.
Entire cast of non-actors from the actual North Philadelphia neighborhood — anchoring the fiction in lived experience is the right move for this subject. Fifteen minutes; Filmsupply-backed but the casting choice is the real claim.
Festivals
- Heartland International Film Festival 2017, Grand Prize, Best Narrative Short
- Palm Springs International ShortFest 2017