When Jamie Foxx and Kerry Washington announced the winner for Best Short Film at the Academy Awards a few weeks back, New York City’s indie-rock community collectively fell off their sofas with shock.
The Oscar went to a 20-minute piece called “Curfew,” directed and starring Shawn Christensen, known to many in the city as the lead singer of the group Stellastarr.
“There have been a lot of bands that we used to play with messaging me and congratulating me since the Oscar win,” says the 33-year-old, who lives in Queens. “A lot of people had no idea that this is what I do now. It kind of makes me want to go and hang out in the East Village for a while. It really was a wonderful time when we were starting out as a band.”
After releasing a self-titled debut in 2003, Stellastarr was tipped to follow the same path to success as fellow downtown post-punk bands the Strokes, Interpol and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. But even then, Christensen saw a different route developing.
“We went on tour across the UK and America, and the Killers opened for us,” he remembers. “I could tell they were gonna be big, and I wasn’t sure about Stellastarr. I was also getting a little bored on the drives between shows, so I started writing screenplays and actually ended up selling a couple. But I had to watch them get shelved or get rewritten, so I used the money to start making my own short films that I could control.”
In 2011, his first short film, “Brink,” made minor waves on the festival circuit, but the Oscar for “Curfew” has signaled his arrival as a director and actor.
The film is a bittersweet drama that revolves around a suicidal down-and-out named Richie, played by Christensen, who is forced to look after his niece, Sophia. The role of the young girl is played astonishingly well by the 12-year-old acting prodigy (and fellow Queens resident) Fatima Ptacek, who also happens to be the voice of Dora the Explorer.
“She was one of the rare things that I never had to worry about on-set,” Christensen says. “I let Fatima hold the Oscar at the parties after the ceremony. Fatima would just go up to people like Spielberg and Tarantino and just ask them to pose for photos with her. She ate it all up, and I just lived vicariously through her.”
The film has also rejuvenated Christensen’s love of making music. In one key sequence in the film, shot at Williamsburg’s Brooklyn Bowl, Ptacek’s character dances to a moody track called “Sophia, So Far,” written by Christensen, which has pricked up the ears of old Stellastarr fans.
“A lot of fans of the film have been asking for that track for a long time, but I never actually wrote the whole thing. I just did a minute or so for the film. There was no middle or end! But I’ve done that now, and I’m going to release it under the name Goodnight Radio.”
Christensen adds that there is occasional talk of reuniting Stellastarr, but with Hollywood calling and a full-length of version of “Curfew” set to receive funding shortly, he’s not likely to have much time for gigs.