the contributions of friends and relatives. Loosely based on Stillman's Manhattan days, with his divorced mother during the week of Christmas break 1969 during his first year at Harvard, Metropolitan tells the story of the alienated Princetonian Tom Townsend's introduction to the "Sally Fowler Rat Pack" (SFRP), a small group of preppy, Upper East Side Manhattanites making the rounds at debutante balls during Christmas break of their first year in college. Though he is a socialist deeply skeptical of the SFRP's upper-class values, Tom (Edward Clements) grows increasingly attached to the cynical Nick (Chris Eigeman) and plays an important part, of which he is largely unaware, in the life of Audrey (Carolyn Farina), a young debutante. Many of the exclusive interior locations were lent to Stillman by family friends and relatives. The film premiered and was screened as part of the Directors' Fortnight section at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. Metropolitan was also nominated for the Grand Jury Prize (Drama) at the 1990 Sundance Film Festival. Stillman won Best First Feature at the 6th Independent Spirit Awards and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1991 for Best Original Screenplay. He won the 1990 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best New Director. The movie was a financial success, grossing about $3 million on a budget of $225,000. In an interview Stillman said of the film, "The material seemed pretty rich, almost rank. And perhaps it's better approaching a subject people feel strongly about, even if that strong feeling is hatred, than something colorless and unspecific. Also, I love anachronism and this was the chance to film, essentially, a costume picture set in the present day or recent past. But a large part of the idea was to disguise our pitifully low budget by filming the most elegant subject available."Barcelona (1994)Barcelona, his first studio-financed film, was inspired by his own experiences in Spain during the early 1980s. Stillman has described the film as An Officer and a Gentleman, but with the title referring to two men rather than one. The men, Ted and Fred, experience the awkwardness of being in love in a foreign country culturally and politically opposed to their own.The Last Days of Disco (1998)'''The Last Days of Disco was based loosely on Stillman's experiences in various Manhattan nightclubs, including Studio 54. The film concerns Ivy League and Hampshire graduates falling in and out of love in