By Zach Simeone

VOORHEESVILLE— has hit home with his first independent, feature film.
The film, "House of Cards," tells the story of a home invasion in a middle class neighborhood during the holiday season. Written and directed by Faulisi, the film explores the ambiguity of morality.
"The best films are where you pose questions as opposed to where you try to provide answers, and with this film I’m trying to do that," Faulisi said. "In life, there’re really no heroes or villains."
Faulisi’s family moved to Voorheesville when he was in eighth grade, and he couldn’t think of a better place to shoot his film, he said. "We shot mainly in my parents’ home, and in a lot of locations that I knew and was very comfortable with," he said. "This is also my first feature film, so this seemed like the perfect place."
"We’ve only lived in this house for five or six years," the 19-year-old filmmaker said of the house used for the shoot, "but it’s a home that my parents built, and I was even involved in the design and everything."
"It’s very exciting," added Rob Faulisi, Chris’s father. "It was great to see actors come from New York City and up in Vermont who are taking this really seriously and trying to put something together."
On having his home used as a film set, Rob Faulisi said, "Well, I had to leave for a few days for a business trip, but it was for the best since they’re bringing in all this equipment and moving everything around. They practically rearranged the whole house."

Playing his cards
Chris Faulisi graduated from Voorheesville’s Clayton A. Bouton High School, and is now a film major at Emerson College in Boston. He has directed and produced short films and music videos, and was director of photography on the video for "The Party Roll" by the "The Godfather of Go-Go," Chuck Brown.
Faulisi said that the script was inspired by true events. "It came from a story my mom had told me from this news clipping she had brought up. There was a home invasion a few towns over and she was so worried and had us locking all our doors," he said. "I think it’s something people will be able to relate to."
Despite the film’s distance from Hollywood, Faulisi managed to bring some heat to the east coast for "House of Cards."
Larry Holden co-stars as the suburban father whose home is invaded. He’s been in three films by Oscar-nominated director Christopher Nolan — "Memento," "Batman Begins," and "Insomnia" — and in major network dramas like "ER" and "CSI."
"He actually came in kind of late in the picture," Faulisi said of Holden. "We had some other people in mind for his role and they ended up falling through. We had put out ads on the Albany and New York City Craig’s Lists. One of his assistants found our posting and thought it was interesting, so he gave me a call and we just kind of hit it off and talked about the project. He liked me and the project enough that he was willing to do it for pretty much nothing."
"We did it for really cheap," Faulisi said of the film. "Me and my father financed the film, and we did the whole movie for like $3,000."
Faulisi added, "One of the most interesting things is that, with the tight schedule we shot on, and the low budget that we had, we were able to get everything done. Everyone in the film was incredibly awesome to work with, and the actors worked so hard to make this film a reality. No one complained about doing 16 hour days and getting five hours of sleep sometimes."
While he is unsure of when the film will be finished, Faulisi said he’s hoping to be done by this summer. "We’re aiming to start with the festival circuit," he said of marketing the film. "It would be great if after that we got a distribution deal but who knows. At the very least, people will be able to purchase DVDs eventually, and we’ll probably try to do a few screenings in the [Voorheesville] area. But that’s all a little ways away."
As far as life after "House of Cards," Faulisi said, "I’m still kind of trying to figure it out. I still have a lot of work to do. I’m going to be editing for the next few months, and all that fun stuff like sound design. I’m talking with a few people about what comes next, though. I’ve had offers to work on films in Oregon, and I’ve got a project coming up about vigilantes that I might be co-writing."