Sun Don’t Shine, Amy Seimetz’s sun-blasted neo-noir opening today in New York at Cinema Village, stars Kate Lyn Sheil and Kentucker Audley as a couple, Crystal and Leo, on the run in steamy, sweaty Florida. Leo loves Crystal, and he’s not going to let the body in the trunk of their car get between them. Shot strikingly with a rough-hewn style by Jay Keitel and anchored by two powerful performances, the film owes as much to Barbara Loden’s seminal Wanda as it does to noir classics like They Live By Night. Sun Don’t Shine is acutely aware of the ways in which female transgression is typically depicted on screen, and in Crystal Seimetz creates a psychologically complex character attempting to bust out of the cinematic role models that have come before her.

Nominated for Filmmaker‘s “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” Gotham Award in 2012, Sun Don’t Shine is now, happily, receiving a theatrical release from Factory 25. It opens at the Cinema Village today, and it is highly recommended. I sat down with Seimetz, Sheil and Audley and will a post of series of clips from our interview this weekend. Here’s the first: Seimetz discussing the effect the Casey Anthony trial, which was unfolding during Sun Don’t Shine‘s production, had on the film.