We think we all can agree that New York City is the greatest city in the world, but this cultural capital does have its irksome moments. We encouraged several of this year’s Festival filmmakers to share their least favorite things about NYC, which include outrageous living expenses, pesky tourists and animal urine.

"Subway delays, humid summers, and finding a cab when it’s raining."

—Matthew Bonifacio, Fortune House

"My rent."

—Daniel Patrick Carbone, Hide Your Smiling Faces

"Would it kill us to move a ski resort closer to the city?  Maybe start making snow up in the hills of Northern Manhattan."

—Dave Carroll, Bending Steel

"When I last lived here I hated the need to make so much money that creativity becomes stifled."

—Kat Corio, A Case of You

"When tourists walk four across on the sidewalk."

—Matt Creed, Lily

"Dog shit, I suppose."

—Sean Dunne, Oxyana

"Stop and Frisk."

—Sam Flesichner, Stand Clear of the Closing Doors

"That anything can happen in a day! I feel like when you’re here and you’re having a good day, you can have the best day possible, but if you’re having a bad day, it’s probably the worst day you’ll ever have. Plus, I hate cab drivers that drive like crazy people."

—Amy Grantham, Lily

"I hate the TVs in the taxis. I used to like to sit in the taxi and organize my thoughts, and I know I can turn them off, but I really don’t like the TVs in the taxis. First couple of years I lived here you could catch a cab that was bigger than my apartment and I really miss those. " 

—Clark Gregg, Trust Me

"The rent. And I’m talking New York City, not the boroughs or anything."

—Chiemi Karasawa, Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me

"NYC kicks you in the face if you slow down. I love that, too. But sometimes I’m tired."

—Michael Beach Nichols, Flex is Kings

"Some days it feels like the city is boiling with rage. It’s like it’s contagious. And it makes me into a person I don’t want to be."

—Jessica Oreck, Aatsinki: The Story of Arctic Cowboys

"I wish I could revisit the NYC of the 80’s, mainly because I only got a childhood glimpse of the weirdness that existed here back then. Although I don’t hate that things have been cleaned up since then, I do think the make over has contributed to the fact that it’s getting harder and harder for an artist to move here and make a living."

—Ryan Scafuro, Bending Steel

"Those moments where you’re carrying a ton of bags and it’s like raining, or there are definitely those days when you are sort of smacked in the face by how very inconvenient the city can be."

—Deidre Schoo, Flex is Kings

"I lived in NYC in the eighties, and there was a lot of poverty. You had to cover people to walk down the street, and it felt like the city wasn’t very sympathetic. But after 9/11, people were a lot more compassionate."

—Stephen Silha, Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton

"I’d say probably the number of places that smell like urine."

—Eric Slade, Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton

"The fact that I don’t live there."

—Darren Stein, G.B.F.

"I hate in the summertime when you walk over those subway grates and it smells like warm piss blowing up on your face. I didn’t know where that smell came from until I went with a buddy of mine to New York a couple of weeks ago. He was walking his dog, and he had taught his dog to piss on those bits. I was like “Dude what are you doing, that’s the warm pee smell! It’s you, it’s your fault!”

—Josh Waller, Raze

"I hate most about New York City that nature is a distant memory. That’s why you see the landscapes in my movies because I grew up in all kinds of wild nature. I really have that strongly in my background so I often feel like I just want more than the one tree sticking out of the cement sidewalk. But that’s changing – like the highline, it’s evolving, it’s been evolving."

—Enid Zentelis, Bottled Up

"That it’s not closer to LA."

—Craig Zisk, The English Teacher