Authors — Whitney Mallett
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Replay Again: On Daniel Chew and Micaela Durand’s NYFF Short, 38
She’s just like a sexy girl. You know the type… goth, horror, self-cutting. She’s like J Lo/Nosferatu. Typical. The whole trend. She’s pinup-y but poseur, like wannabe, like big ass. She probably doesn’t really have a big ass but looks like it in the photos — That’s how the protagonist in Daniel Chew and Micaela Durand’s new film 38 drags the woman who slept with her husband. The film’s action takes place post-affair, centering around the scorned wife (played by Curie Choi) online stalking the “other woman” (played by Alicia Novella Vasquez), an obsessive screen-based fixation uncomfortably relatable to probably […]
by Whitney Mallett on Oct 6, 2021 -
The Hyper-Contemporary, Anti-Influencer Satire of Eugene Kotylarenko’s Spree
Eugene Kotylarenko has carved out a niche of vomiting up hyper-contemporary satires, up-to-the-minute and on-the-nose in their damning send-ups. His latest is Spree, a gory thriller told through livestream feed about Kurt, a rideshare driver and wannabe influencer who broadcasts a twisted murder rampage. (The film is available for rental now on digital platforms.) After producing content in obscurity for so many years, he kills his passengers in a desperate attempt to achieve viral fame. For good reasons, Spree has garnered comparisons to Taxi Driver and To Die For, but the LA backdrop made me think first and foremost of […]
by Whitney Mallett on Aug 17, 2020 -
“We Wanted to Satire Wealth and Philanthropy — It’s a Critique of Charity as a Mode of Thinking that Comes Almost Exclusively from a Place of Privilege”: Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt on Diamantino
A soccer star weaving through giant puppies on a stadium pitch clouded by cosmic cotton candy is the wildest and most memorable image from Gabriel Abrantes’s and Daniel Schmidt’s screwball satire, Diamantino, which opens its theatrical run in LA today. Debuting at Cannes in 2018, where it won both the Critics’ Week Grand Prize and the Palm Dog Jury Prize for best canine performance, the roving comedy weaves together a wacky plot with hyper-topical subjects like rising neo-facism, genetic modification and the refugee crisis. Named for its protagonist soccer stud loosely inspired by Christian Ronaldo, Diamantino begins with a fall […]
by Whitney Mallett on Jun 28, 2019 -
Zika, GMO Mosquitos and the Brazilian Far Right: Artist and Filmmaker Pedro Neves Marques on A Mordida (The Bite)
Two years ago, the Miami Herald was worried: “Will Zika, election spoil Art Basel in Miami Beach 2016?” With South Beach’s art deco district smack in the middle of one of the Department of Health-designated “transmission zones,” it seemed like the deadly virus spread by mosquitoes and Trump’s recent presidential win might put a damper on the party. Now this year, Pedro Neves Marques’s A Mordida (The Bite) — the filmmaker, writer and visual artist’s first U.S. museum solo show, which opened December 4 at Pérez Art Museum Miami — puts Zika and rising Far Right sentiment in conversation, suggesting […]
by Whitney Mallett on Dec 19, 2018 -
A MAGA Nightmare Scene, Marketing to Incels and Reacting Against “Performative Wokeness”: Eugene Kotlyarenko and Dasha Nekrasova on Their Reverse Romantic Comedy, Wobble Palace
Wobble Palace is a reverse romantic comedy set in relationship hell tinged by the toxicity of Tinder hookups and Trump’s political rise. “One of the early ideas was to make a movie about a happy break up,” explains director Eugene Kotlyarenko. “The formula for a rom com is whatever happens for the first 90 minutes, by the end, the couple gets together.” Flipping this arc, the film climaxes (spoiler alert!) in the couple splitting up instead. “In a relationship that’s really toxic, staying together is really horrible and breaking up is really liberating,” Kotlyarenko continues. The film follows a millennial […]
by Whitney Mallett on Oct 23, 2018 -
Examining White Supremacy and Rising Conservatism at the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival
At the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival, the tenebrous artistry of medieval Czech architecture was a fitting backdrop for a program of creatively-rendered non-fiction films, many engaging bleak contemporary realities. Set in the historic (and very walkable) downtown of the 50,000-person city of Jihlava, an hour-and-a-half drive from Prague, the 21st edition of the fest had an exciting mix of experimental films, single-director retrospectives, provocative television docs, international festival fodder and engaging forum discussions. Rising white supremacy and conservatism as well as European perspectives on Middle Eastern conflicts were recurring themes. Passes were affordable and theaters were packed with locals […]
by Whitney Mallett on Dec 4, 2017 -
Check Your Canon
The issue of diversity in the film canon — the movies celebrated and studied at film schools across the country — has come under hot debate in the past couple of years, with students starting conversations about the larger consequences of curricular omissions. “When I look at a syllabus and there’s no one from my perspective on there, I wonder if my ideas will be taken seriously by Hollywood or by any producer,” admits Zsaknor Powe, a junior studying film at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. “It really affects the artistic self-esteem of the students,” explains Powe, […]
by Whitney Mallett on Jun 16, 2017 -
Religious Fervor and Precarious Times: The 2016 Indie Memphis Film Festival
I arrived in Memphis a week ago, but it feels like longer. It was a balmy evening like the last breath of summer, and I hadn’t yet met the full realization that Trump could become the President-elect in a matter of days. Making my way back from the opening night screening of The Invaders, a Memphis-produced documentary chronicling the local militant group’s role in the 1968 sanitation workers’ strike and their meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr. right before his assassination, I walked the empty blocks with a homeless vet and long-ago college football star who foreboded the results of […]
by Whitney Mallett on Nov 10, 2016 -
Human Highway: Writer/Director Andrea Arnold Talks American Honey
Watching the world go by out a car window, a road trip feels like going nowhere and somewhere at the same time. The overpasses and parking lots, they all look enough alike, and then thousands of miles later, by the time you get somewhere new, you’ve changed, a metamorphosis propelled by asphalt and gasoline. The road is a symbol in America, as much as an everyday experience. Last month, Frank Ocean released his album Blonde accompanied with a zine about cars. “We live in cars in some cities, commuting across space either for our livelihood, or devouring fossil fuels for […]
by Whitney Mallett on Sep 29, 2016 -
The Changing Face of Documentary Distribution: The 17th Annual Hot Docs Forum
The 17th annual Hot Docs Forum kicked off Tuesday in Toronto with all the pomp and ceremony of a high school model UN tournament. Axel Arno, SVT commissioning editor and one of three forum moderators, laid out the rules: each team will have seven minutes to pitch, followed by another seven minutes of question-and-answer discussion; the bell will ring once at the six-minute mark and twice at the seven-minute mark. Over two days, 20 producing teams pitched projects while 20-odd commissioning editors, broadcasters and video-on-demand reps sat at the table giving their feedback while other financiers and gatekeepers, most notably […]
by Whitney Mallett on May 5, 2016
