Actor/essayist David Rakoff in a scene from The New Tenants.

In the opening monologue of Joachim Back's first short feature, The New Tenants, scriptwriter David Rakoff, who plays one of the film's two lead characters, ruminates on the nature of death: "No one gets out alive", he says. "Everyone buys the farm at some point and usually in the most hideous, least photogenic manner".

If the film had a brief, those few lines would be it. What follows is a chain of events - all taking place in a tiny New York City apartment with a sketchy past and unwitting new tenants - that touch on a very large question. Namely, why in the face of overwhelming tragedy, do humans sometimes feel the need to find humor?

"I don't know," Back wonders when asked about the theme of his film, which is nominated for best live-action short at this Sunday's Academy Awards. "It's pretty much because it's such an abstract thing for your mind. I think otherwise you'd break down, so you just have to laugh."

Actress Liane Balaban confronts death in The New Tenants.

The absurdity of something as potentially terrifying and unknown as death is a theme that Back, who is repped by The New Tenants producer, bicoastal Park Pictures, has circled around since childhood. One experience at a favorite aunt's funeral in particular seems to have struck a chord, which resonates in the character's reactions to death in the film.

"I had to carry the coffin out of the church but the door was too small. My brother was carrying the other end and we couldn't simply stop laughing when we were looking at each other," remembers Back. "It's like: you're not going to laugh, you're not going to laugh...and I didn't laugh loudly but inside it was just so absurd that I couldn't control any feelings of it.

"But that's what it is, and that's what I'm thinking sometimes [about our reaction to death]," he continues. "Should we dance? Should we just smoke? Or should we just have sex or have love? What should we do: should we cry? I think that David Kasoff's character felt something and in the end, it's just that we need to live on. What else can we do but keep living?"

The film was originally written by Danish screenwriter and director Anders Thomas Jensen (Election Night), but Back brought on noted essayist and journalist David Rakoff to adapt the script to include a more adult voice and a distinctly New York sensibility.

"My goal was to bring the New York stories back, like the Scorsese ones. New York is a mad place, but it's also very lovely and lost and it's always very beautiful and ugly," says Back. "What I said to myself constantly was I need to add the poetry to this place and I thought David Rakoff is pretty much what it is. He gave me that intellect that the film needed. Otherwise it'd be ‘bang, bang, boom' and aggressive, but I thought he had a sophistication that I really admired."

Back worked with colleagues Pawel Edelman, a Polish cinematographer noted for his work on films such as The Pianist and Ray, and editor Russell Icke from the Whitehouse post. The relationship, however, seemed to be more a collaboration of creativity as well as camaraderie.

"Russell is an amazing balance of editing and storytelling," enthuses Back. "And Pawel is poetry of light."

Watch The New Tenants trailer here.

www.thenewtenantsfilm.com

www.parkpictures.com

www.whitehousepost.com