Empire State

New York City plays its own character in every film it’s featured in, and Felipe Sanguinetti‘s short Mine is no exception. In broad daylight, two dark-haired beauties stare at the city’s skyline from a barren rooftop terrace. By nightfall, the couple descends into the depths of the concrete jungle. They roam through the gritty streets in all-black getup—she wears a vintage Chanel dress and beret; he is dressed in Dior Homme. They cling to one another beneath fire escapes in back alleyways, but this film is “more about lust than love,” Sanguinetti says. Indeed, the characters seem like strangers to each other and there’s something chilling about their empty glares. This unsettling quality is an obvious telltale of Sanguinetti’s films. “There is always a sense of melancholy in the work I do,” he says.