Larry Fessenden

In 1996, filmmaker Larry Fessenden was tagged as one to watch by the Independent Features Project. Savvy aficionados of the Downtown NYC scene were already keyed to his talents. A child of privilege, Fessenden was raised in the tony Upper East Side of Manhattan and attended prep school at Andover (although he was expelled). He began experimenting with video and super 8mm movie making and completed the 58-minute "A Face in the Crowd" (1980), about a NYC artist, and several shorts. On the strength of that work, Fessenden was accepted at NYU where he made the first incarnation of "Habit," then an 85-minute video co-written with Brendan Mee. He and Mee collaborated on the eight-episode public access television show "Be Mee TV Presents" in 1982.