This new Brooklyn-based movie captures the comical humiliations of city life

By Joshua Encinias

Actress Pauline Chalamet and writer Shauna Fitzgerald were at dinner in Brooklyn, discussing the quirks that make New York feel unlivable — that is, until they become funny stories to share over drinks. Filmmaker Luca Balser happened to ride past on his bike. They called him over to join the conversation.

“It’s an anecdote that you hear about but you don’t think is real,” says Chalamet. “The three of us were talking about funny things that happen to you in New York, and we realized we could make a movie out of our experiences.”

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Their idea comes to life in the new movie “What Doesn’t Float,” directed by Balser, co-produced by Chalamet and Rachel Walden, and written by Fitzgerald.

It’s the first movie by Balser, Chalamet and Walden’s Dumbo-based production company Gummy Films. The company was created to produce “What Doesn’t Float,” but it isn’t the first project they’ve released. In the four years since they were founded, Gummy’s created music videos for Brockhampton and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

The young production company walks a familiar tightrope. They have to balance working on projects they want to be associated with and pay the bills at the same time. The projects they choose both keep the lights on and sustain their dream.

“We only make projects that we connect with artistically,” says Chalamet. “Which, obviously, is a dream, but everybody has a dream.”

Brooklyn Magazine spoke with Chalamet (who is, yes, Timothée’s sister) and Balser about their four-year journey to bring their anthology of New Yorkers at their wit’s end, “What Doesn’t Float,” to the screen.

“What Doesn’t Float” is showing at the Roxy Cinema this weekend with live filmmaker Q&As.

Is it fair to call “What Doesn’t Float” an anthology of short stories about the worst day you can have in New York City? 
Luca Balser: They’re situations everyone in New York can relate to. Situations where a moment of misunderstanding gets out of hand and quickly becomes the worst day ever. But finding the humor in that was really important to me and to the writer, Shauna Fitzgerald, because that’s the only way to get over these moments in life — to end up having it in a place where you can tell it as a story and laugh it off. Hopefully, that’s what makes it relatable.

Did Shauna pull from personal experience for the script?
Balser: A few of the stories were definitely based on personal experiences: the short that Pauline’s in, about this Greek motorcyclist who kept faking that he was going to ride over this ledge into the water. Then three days later Shauna saw him and he was soaking wet. It was clear that he actually did the prank and fucked it up. The story about the guy who eats a pet fish is based on an article we found about this guy who actually tried to eat a Cory catfish, like a hard-shelled catfish that got lodged in his throat. It was the perfect story, but ours is a little bit darker.

Pauline, you’ve been in the “Criterion Closet” and you picked a movie at random. I’ve never seen anyone do that before. You got the Finnish film “The Other Side of Hope,” by Aki Kaurismäki. What did you think of it?
Chalamet: So, spoiler alert, I have not watched “The Other Side of Hope.” I chose a movie at random because it’s really overwhelming to be in that closet, especially with so many incredible filmmakers who’ve been in there. So I was like, “I just don’t know how to end this video.” They were very nice, and they said, “You should just twirl around and choose a movie at random.” I still have not watched it. I’m holding on it and I like Aki Kaurismäki’s movies. Hopefully, I’ll watch it soon.

Luca, talk about being an assistant editor for Martin Scorsese’s “Rolling Thunder Review” and the Safdie Brother’s movie “Uncut Gems.”
Balser: Both were huge moments in my life where I really learned how to make films just by watching David Tedeschi, who’s Scorsese’s editor, and watching Ronny Bronstein and Benny and Josh Safdie work together. They were completely mind-blowing experiences. I did that for about five years. I was three years on “Rolling Thunder” and two years on “Uncut Gems.”

You created Gummy Films in 2019 with Pauline and Rachel Walden, and you’ve made a bunch of different projects like music videos, animations, documentaries, etc. How has Gummy developed over the last four years?
Balser: We actually founded Gummy Films for “What Doesn’t Float” because we needed an LLC for the money we were putting into the film. When we were doing that, we put our heads together because we enjoy making movies together so much that we wanted to make this a real thing and keep going with it. It was kind of a collective at first, but now it’s become this production company and post-production company run by Pauline, Rachel and I. We’re based out of Brooklyn, but obviously, we have Pauline repping us in Los Angeles and Paris. The LLC has actually started in Atlanta because that’s where Rachel’s from originally. So we’re all over the country and the world, but we run the office out of Dumbo mostly.

You created Gummy Films to make “What Doesn’t Float,” but you made a ton of other projects before releasing the movie?
Chalamet: We also shot the movie piecemeal, but even shooting it that way, we finished it a long time ago. I think it speaks to Luca’s and all of our tenacity to not let the movie go. But it’s also really hard when you have these micro-budget movies because they’re not how you’re going to pay your rent. And the projects that you work on to pay your rent are the projects that you have to spend more time on day to day. So that’s why it took four years to release the film.

Balser: We have an office now in Dumbo, so we have overhead and we need money coming in, but we also know a lot of people who bring us very interesting projects. We try to take the ones that we really believe in and feel they represent us from a storytelling perspective. Even if it’s a music video, we’re picking things that we can align with.

Which of the stories in “What Doesn’t Float” were filmed in Brooklyn?
Balser: Pauline’s vignette was shot in Red Hook, and at the end when she’s going toward the water is actually in Floyd Bennett Field along the shore of Jamaica Bay. It’s a World War II airport that was turned into national park. We didn’t have a permit to film there, and we kept getting kicked out. So we were like stealing the shot, leave, steal a shot here, move, steal the shot here. We also shot in Park Slope and around the city as much as we could.

I rewatched Walter Hill’s movie “The Warriors” two nights ago and there’s this shot of them running down the subway tracks, and I was like, there’s no way you could get that now. If you paid for a permit for it, it would be so expensive.

How would you get away with shooting illegally in the subway today?
Chalamet: I would tell them we’re filming a home movie and it’s personal footage. I would tell them we take home movies very seriously in my family! [Laughs.]