"Susie Q" follows shenanigans in Pleasantville-like Queens

A new Queens-centric comedy is looking to hit the film festival circuit this year.“Susie Q” follows two brothers, played by Anthony Robles and Ausar English, who each fall in love with the same neighborhood bad-girl, played by Olga Elliot.But this isn’t a traditional movie capturing two guys fighting over a young woman. These brothers are actually planning to rob the girl that they’ve fallen for in order to pay off a bully.Filmmaker and Forest Hills native Vilan Trub has experience working in production but wanted to put his own stamp on the film industry by creating his own movie.After becoming inspired at the New York Film Forum in Manhattan, set out to make “Susie Q,” his second attempt at a featured film.With “Susie Q,” Trub mainly wanted to explore the relationship between two brothers. While one brother is older and more successful with courting women, the younger brother is “wet behind the ears,” so Trub delves into their dynamics.Their common love interest is certainly used as a catalyst to fuel why and how they interact with each other.Trub deemed Susie Q the “Darth Vader” of the movie. Her character had to be an "evil force" in order to have the audience go along with the brothers’ plan to rob her.The goal was to start the comedy with a loose story that could be shaped as filming went on.“You get to see how people are on an everyday basis when they’ve got nothing else to do,” he said. “While they are trying to rob the girl to pay off a bully, in reality they just have nothing better to do and they’re just strolling through life.”And while the film, shot in black and white, looks as if it was locked away in a time capsule, the story is actually set in more modern times, sometime pre-September 11.“Just as the Kennedy assassination was a turning point in the 60s, where it was the death to innocence, 9/11 is our generation’s turning point,” Trub said. “Inspired by the movie 'American Graffiti,' which was set right before the Kennedy assassination, I ideally wanted the 'Susie Q' movie to take place before 9/11. It’s like looking into what kind of problems do people have when they don’t have any problems.”“That’s why this feeling that I wanted to have was a Pleasantville, pre-9/11 feeling of ‘there’s nothing really going on in the world,' which is why everything these brothers are doing seems to be the most important things in the world,” he added.Most of the movie was filmed in Forest Hills and Rego Park. The area played a big role in the movie, especially aesthetically, in which it represented an urban yet safe space where everyone knew one another.Furthermore, the actors were able to meet with real Forest Hills residents who may have inspired certain aspects of the fictional characters’ story lines or traits. The actors picked up mannerisms and energies from the Forest Hills residents to give the movie a more authentic flare. In fact, Trub even put childhood friends and people from the neighborhood in the film as well.Trub and others who’ve worked on the film are looking to include the community through two contests: designing a poster based on the film and editing a trailer. Open to the public, anyone can submit their artwork or video for the film. The top ten submissions will be featured on the Susie Q website with the top prize winner also in line to win $100.“It’s a great way to get in touch with other filmmakers and possible fans of the movie,” Trub said. “We’ve already seen a few submissions and it’s really interesting to see how people take your work and how they interpret it.”For information about the movie and the contests, visit SusieQMovie.com.