If you could go back to any day in your life and relive it one more time, which would you
choose? The independent, coming-of-age short film, Garbage Day, could help inspire an
answer.
This feature, directed and written by Kyle Silverio, a filmmaker and recent NYU graduate, first
began after he experienced a creative rut in the Fall of 2024. After careful consideration, Silverio found the only cure would be to throw himself into a new, exciting project he could fully devote himself to post-grad.
“When I think back to the headspace I was in at that time, a line that immediately comes back to me is, ‘I want life to feel like something again,’” Silverio said. “The whole year prior was pretty tumultuous emotionally, arguably the hardest year of my life aside from Covid. I felt disconnected from the experiences and beliefs that once grounded me in my sense of self.”
He continued, “But after extensive self-reflection, there was only one answer: my gap
semester of Spring/Summer 2023. That time of my life made me who I am. I knew that the
things I learned during that time were things I would always believe in.”
And thus, Garbage Day was born.
Although Silverio had an idea and a story, he most importantly needed to acquire a crew whose visions aligned with his own. So, he called up some of his old friends, Maddie Lucy, Bernadette Daunt, Jack Lacy, and Julia Lipsztein, to help produce the film.
“If I’ve learned anything about filmmaking,” Silverio explained, “it’s that when you set out to make a movie, you’re setting out to run a summer camp. Filmmaking requires an army of like-minded, talented humans who wholeheartedly align with your vision. And you have to provide them with everything they need in order to succeed and have fun.”
Creating an independent film from scratch is no small feat. The team needed to find funds,
camera gear, actors, and production design equipment, just to name a few of the many moving parts it took to get their concept through to the finish line.
In terms of funding, Silverio shared how they made enough to sustain the creation process.
“Most of the budget was personally funded — savings from a summer job and school-year
internship,” he said. “We also had a small fundraising campaign on Seed & Spark, where many family, friends, and other connections were so generous as to contribute to this vision.”
He also pointed to his web of connections as a leading factor in production. From the camera and tripod borrowed from his father to the lighting gear acquired through fellowship positions, it took a village to bring together the equipment used to produce the film.
Inspired by Kyle’s real-life experience, a gap semester taken between his sophomore and junior years of college, Garbage Day reflects on how stepping away from the hustle of work and spending time having pure child-like fun can shape who we become.
Don’t like trash? Don’t worry, that’s actually not what the film is about.
Starring four best friends—Kenny Barrett as Wally, Rowan Walter as Emmett, Will Vanterpool as Jason, and Noa Solomon as Sadie—it features scenes capturing the characters participating in complete tomfoolery. From swinging impossible mini golf shots to DoorDash-ing Wendy’s from their backyard at 1 a.m., the film is sure to tug on your nostalgic heartstrings, especially if you’re a recent graduate.
Silverio described the film with one simple line: “Flames of lighthearted excitement fanned by
winds of heavy existential dread.”
He continued, “This movie aims to remind people — especially young adults who are just trying to figure their lives out — to zoom out, preserve some time to play, and have a deeper
appreciation for the present moment in front of them. What happens in this movie comes from
the time of my life when I remembered that myself.”
In fact, the title Garbage Day has little to do with the actual plot of the film, but rather an inside joke among Silverio and his friends. “During my first semester at NYU,” he began, “I took a screenwriting class where I wrote a script titled Moving Day, inspired by when I helped a friend move apartments in Brooklyn. Then the following Spring semester, I helped my friend produce and shoot her short film, which we titled Laundry Days. Neither the story nor its conception had any connection to my Moving Day script, but we noticed a pattern forming nonetheless. Continuing the punchline, we jokingly said we would eventually make a film titled Garbage Day, which conceptually had absolutely nothing similar to what Garbage Day has become now.”
The plot of the film is largely influenced by the 80’s classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. According to Silverio, “Garbage Day stands for the same themes, and it presents those arguments in
similar ways — ‘Live by your own rules before your life slips away from you.’ But what sets
Garbage Day apart is that it’s deeply rooted in my own personal experiences — scenes
inspired by real conversations, characters inspired by real people, stories inspired by a time of my life that was profoundly formative.”
Silverio’s favorite YouTubers also helped get his creativity flowing. He specifically noted Wesley Wang’s Nothing, Except Everything, and Tanner Ray’s Oklahoma Summer and Connecting the Dots as sources of inspiration. Other influencers that Silverio called upon in his creative process include Casey Neistat, Jake Frew, Corridor Digital, and Ryan Higa.
Silverio said, “All have minimalistic and grounded approaches to filmmaking and storytelling. All are living proof that you don’t necessarily need studio budgets or fancy equipment in order to create meaningful art. If you’re smart about it and surround yourself with the right people, effective filmmaking becomes much more accessible than initially expected.”
Additionally, some die-hard Stranger Things fans may catch nods to the franchise throughout
the film if they look closely enough. Silverio exclusively spilled hints on where to spot these
details. “Most recognizably,” he said, “there is a nightmare sequence that takes on a more thrilling tone and draws heavy directorial inspiration from the Duffer Brothers. But even beyond that scene, the parts of Stranger Things that champion friendship and coming-of-age also have a significant influence on this film as a whole.”
Keeping with the Stranger Things thriller theme, the tagline of the film may sound ominous out of context – “nothing lasts forever.” However, rather than signaling a sense of eerie despair, it actually serves as a reminder to always live in the moment and enjoy the lives we are given today. The team plans to announce two in-person screenings of Garbage Day, one in New York City and another in the Hudson Valley, scheduled for later this summer. Additional availability for streaming will be announced after the film’s premiere.
“On a deeper philosophical note,” Silverio concluded, “creating this film required incredible amounts of hard work, patience, problem-solving, communication, rolling with the punches, and just pure hoping for the best. It was far from easy, and I’m still amazed by how we were able to pull it off in the way that we did. In the end, making this film was deeply fulfilling. I was surrounded by my friends and family. We all participated in something we all collectively loved: filmmaking. And there weren’t any classes or production guidelines we had to report to at the end of it. We were literally just a big group of kids playing outside, making a movie, just because it was fun. I wanted this production to feel like summer camp. And now looking back on it, that’s exactly what it was.”
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