1.   For novice filmmakers of color, such chances are harder to come by.

2.   Five years ago, when this independent film came out, Burns was a novice filmmaker.

3.   Independent films, typically made on small budgets by novice filmmakers, are a crapshoot.

4.   Tom DiCillo fares better than usual as a novice filmmaker whose bargain-basement feature is about a grunge director making what else but an bargain-basement feature.