Amateur is the unsettling story of a poor young woman who, recently released from her vows as a Catholic nun, tries to earn a living writing pornography. She meets and assists a helpless and kind man with amnesia who is gradually revealed to be a sadistic, murderous pornographer himself, though he cannot remember any of this.

In Flirt three young people of different genders, race, sexual orientation, and in different cultures, face the same dilemma: trying to decide to commit to their lover or to continue exploring possible affairs with other people. In each case, using almost the same words, the situation plays out in varying ways as Hartley allows the particularities of environment to affect the outcome.

This third volume of the collected screenplays of Hal Hartley brings together two scripts that are essential to the filmmaker’s dynamic evolution in the mid 1990s. Written and produced almost simultaneously, Amateur and Flirt, in different ways, highlight Hartley’s consistency of inquiry, sense of fun with ideas, and his underlying compassion for outsiders and idealists.

These are the definitive versions of the screenplays corrected in accordance with Hal Hartley’s original drafts and notes.

Publication Date: June 21, 2022
Publisher: Elboro Press
ISBN: 978-1-7321817-9-3
Perfect Bound Paperback, 182 pages
Dimensions: 5” x 8”
Retail Price: $17.95