Nothing really happens in Joe Swanberg’s new film “Hannah Takes the Stairs.” A small circle of post-collegiate Chicagoans negotiate the ambiguities of romantic engagement, talk a lot in close-ups as intimate as a pair of skintight Levi’s, and bathe frequently — with an unfussy and not particularly erotic regard for full frontal nudity. If, as “Seinfeld” creator Larry David once quipped, the TV series was supposed to be a “comedy about nothing,” it might be just as easy to dismiss “Hannah Takes the Stairs” as a solipsistic wallow in the MySpace angst of 20-something hipsters.

Instead, it’s emblematic of the freely inventive work of a new generation of American independent filmmakers. Many of them, in fact, form the cast of “Hannah,” the third feature from the Chicago-based Mr. Swanberg, which makes its premiere Wednesday at the IFC Center. The film, which stars New York playwright Greta Gerwig as the charismatic but emotionally frustrated Hannah, leads off a two-week mini-festival billed as “The New Talkies.”

Though marked by individual perspectives, efforts by directors Aaron Katz (whose “Quiet City” will be screened at IFC Center beginning on August 29), Andrew Bujalski (“Funny Ha Ha,” “Mutual Appreciation”), the Duplass brothers (“The Puffy Chair”), Mr. Swanberg, and others have much in common: no budgets; use of an often shaky, single handheld digital video camera and available light; interiors furnished by the Salvation Army (aka someone’s girlfriend’s apartment); dialogue that either is improvised or feels that way, and a communal sensibility that draws on the filmmaker’s social circle rather than professional actors. In fact, most of the principals appear in one another’s films — especially “Hannah,” in which nearly the entire cast is comprised of emergent filmmakers.

Like many of his peers, the 25-year-old Mr. Swanberg is amused by the label that’s been slapped on these films: Mumblecore. Mr. Bujalski popularized the tag after his sound editor made a wisecrack about the talky, yet often inarticulate, characters in his films. It also alludes to a do-it-yourself, indie-rock aesthetic that lends these filmmakers similarities to bands on the local club circuit. Not for nothing did many of them become acquainted during the past three years at the film portion of Austin’s South by Southwest festival. Neither is it coincidence that their casual narratives often unwind through coffee shops, loft parties, and soundtracks full of haphazard tinkering on old guitars and Casio keyboards.

“It’s about the way life reveals stories to you more in a roundabout way, in bits and pieces,” Mr. Swanberg said. “Some people will say, ‘Who cares — people just talking is not a reason to be making a movie.’ But when you’re making it for less than $10,000, I think it’s okay to make a film and show it to a select audience. Musicians have been doing that for a long time.” Mr. Swanberg prefers to call himself an orchestrator rather than a director. Everything in “Hannah,” aside from a two-page treatment, was improvised by the cast and shot over a successive 30-day period — actually, a relatively luxurious amount of time. Other directors, such as Mr. Katz and the Memphis-based Kentucker Audley (“Team Picture”), prefer to write scripts that can be riffed on, though toward the same effect: a candid naturalism. Such aspirations led bloggers and tastemakers to coin the term “slackervettes,” but the antecedents are much broader, plotted along a continuum that has Eric Rohmer’s moral comedies at one end and the spring-break psychodrama of MTV’s “The Real World” at the other.

“I’d be hard-pressed to say that Eric Rohmer was any more of an influence than YouTube or reality TV,” Mr. Swanberg said. “As annoying as reality TV is, it’s been really good for filmmakers because it got mainstream audiences used to watching shaky camerawork and different kinds of situations.”

Often, those situations are the complicated sorting-out that goes on between the sexes.

Mr. Katz’s “Dance Party USA” pivots around a high school senior’s confession of sexual assault, and his earnest, if inchoate, effort to come to terms with adulthood. His new “Quiet City” is not nearly as heavy. It follows the events that occur after a chance encounter at a Park Slope subway station between a stranded visitor and the friendly guy who becomes her unexpected host. It’s a bit of a Brooklyn variation on “Before Sunrise,” in which the incidental charms of closely observed moments are juxtaposed with serene interludes of the borough after-hours.

“I wanted to make the ‘big thing’ in the film the interaction between the two people,” Mr. Katz, 25, said. As a Brooklyn resident who lives near the Gowanus Canal, he also wanted to take advantage of the lofty views provided by the elevated subway at Smith and 9th Streets.

“Everyone is trying to explore the world around them,” he said. “Not in a movie kind of way, but in a real way.”

That often seems to involve a passive-aggressive dynamic in which young people try to express themselves verbally, but have much better luck with their blogs, or onstage at open mic nights. Mr. Audley, 25, who wrote, shot, and stars in “Team Picture,” plays a scruffy denizen of the Memphis college ghetto who breaks up with his more motivated girlfriend, quits his job, and takes a stab at songwriting — though his main objective seems to be keeping his inflatable kiddie-pool full of water. That may sound trite, but it’s a pretty funny character study, a shambling ode to the fine art of hanging out. Mr. Audley, who spends much of the film in a straw hat looking like Bob Dylan on the cover of “Nashville Skyline,” doesn’t overstate his goals.

“The film is about a personality, um, my personality,” Mr. Audley, who first became aware of sympathetic filmmakers when he screened a short at the 2006 Slamdance Film Festival, said. “I wanted to create a full person, and for that person to be intricately shown. The power in these tiny films is seeing an absolutely real person on-screen, real in how they feel and how they move. I didn’t have famous actors at my disposal, or a million dollars, but it’s hard to imagine writing something on a larger scale, or with less personal material.”