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Daniel Antebi
Revealing a personal experience of sexual assault is intimidating in any context. Detailing the ordeal in an op-ed for Teen Vogue seems almost unfathomable. But that’s exactly what Daniel Antebi did in January 2019, recounting the day he, then a 14-year-old martial arts student in Washington, D.C., was sexually abused by his instructor. Detailing the ways in which society discourages men from speaking out against assault, the article came accompanied by a 65-second Strength Speaks Up public service announcement (PSA) directed by Antebi, featuring a martial arts student trapped in an unhealthy power dynamic with his teacher. Born in Mexico […]
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 19, 2020 -
Hayley Garrigus
Describing his work as a journalist on the alt-right beat in 2017, Joseph Bernstein noted that he had “a high personal tolerance for shit.” It’s a description Hayley Garrigus thinks could also apply to her approach to nonfiction filmmaking, she says, “mixed in with pure curiosity for people, this naiveté I approach these subjects with. I’m going to come at you as if I don’t know you at all, without any preconceived notions.” You Can’t Kill Meme, her first feature, is bookended by the unnerving image of an CG-animated Pepe the Frog cradled like a baby in a man’s arms […]
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 19, 2020 -
Victoria Rivera
“I have a particular interest in complicated, flawed protagonists who find themselves in moral quandaries,” says writer, director and producer Victoria Rivera, a New York–based filmmaker whose success with recent shorts is leading her to her largest project, a feature adventure on the open sea exploring gender dynamics as well as the corporate politics around shark hunting. Rivera was born and grew up in Colombia, where she debated whether to become a doctor or a filmmaker. “I shadowed some doctors, and they all said, ’Go into film,’” she says. She moved to New York, attended School of Visual Arts for […]
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 19, 2020 -
Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich
Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich isn’t interested in convention. The 33-year-old filmmaker blends narrative and documentary elements to create surrealist interpretations of Black history and experiences—stories underrepresented in the Western film canon despite the continuous presence of Black filmmakers since cinema’s inception. “The thing that film needs to ask itself is if it’s interested in continuing to evolve,” says Hunt-Ehrlich. “If it doesn’t grow, it’s going to be left behind.” Whether or not the broader cinematic landscape is ready to change, Hunt-Ehrlich is honing her own distinctive approach to the dramatization of Black stories, one that values opacity and abstraction over linear narrative. […]
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 19, 2020 -
Christine Haroutounian
In Christine Haroutounian’s second short film, World, Claudette (Hasmik Hovian) has arrived in an Armenian village to take care of her dying mother. The 22-minute short generates one whiplash sensation after another in its very impolite rendering of end-of-life caretaking: black comedy via a visit from a neighbor bringing unwanted soup as an excuse to chide Claudette (“Your mom was right. Her death will be a good lesson for you”), abrupt visual shocks from the animal kingdom (a vividly red shot of a chicken with its head cut off, a fly crawling around Claudette’s barely breathing mother’s mouth), randomly initiated […]
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 19, 2020 -
Joseph Sackett
Writer/director Joseph Sackett had won some free film stock at a film festival and decided to “write something short and simple.” In a day, he wrote a draft of a story about a young boy who falls in love with his babysitter—and then dreams that he’s actually coursing through her veins, inhabiting her lungs. Shot by Jomo Fray two-and-a-half weeks later, and starring Colby Minifie and Tre Ryder, the short, I Was in Your Blood, elegantly moves from a tender series of stolen moments as the boy crushes on his babysitter to the trippy animated finale of his dream. “I […]
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 19, 2020 -
Tayler Montague
Tayler Montague’s debut short film, In Sudden Darkness, about a young working-class family in the Bronx navigating the Northeast blackout of 2003, is—contrary to its bleak-sounding title—a portrait of profound love and joy. “I didn’t have a scary blackout experience,” says the native New Yorker, who experienced the blackout as a child. “I mean, it’s corny, right? But love is the core of everything in that household.” The lights go out, and when night hits and the community starts tripping on one another’s shoes in the dark, there’s comfort knowing everyone can be recognized just by the sound of their […]
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 19, 2020 -
Iliana Sosa
For 20 years, Iliana Sosa’s grandfather Julián took a monthly trip from the Mexican city of Durango across the border to visit family in El Paso, Texas, and Albuquerque, New Mexico. He’d previously traveled to the United States as part of the Bracero program, started by the U.S. government in 1942 to contract Mexican farm workers to fill in during World War II’s labor shortage. “I grew up with an image of him coming every month with his cowboy hat,” Sosa recalls, but “didn’t really know him. This allowed me to get closer. Some of the best moments of my […]
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 19, 2020 -
Daniel Hymanson
Chicago native Daniel Hymanson’s first feature, So Late So Soon, grew from his longtime relationship with artist and children’s teacher Jackie Seiden. Hymanson started taking her classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago around age five and became a regular visitor to Jackie and late artist husband Don’s house. Shot over a multiyear period, including a stretch when Hymanson lived across the street, So Late So Soon is a lovingly assembled portrait of a (mostly) harmonious couple living in a house dominated by their sculptural installations. Elegant editorial leaps to archival footage expand the crowd-pleaser’s more sorrowful […]
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 19, 2020 -
Moara Passoni
Growing up in São Paulo, Brazil, Moara Passoni would attend grassroots political meetings with her parents. (Her dad was an activist, her mom a nun who became a congresswoman.) Growing up, she created a political rag for children called “Blah Blah Blah,” a political party (“The Children’s Party”) and, after “stealing” her father’s Nikon camera one day, wandered the halls of the Congress building in Brasília, “playing at being [an] investigative journalist.” Still images gave way to moving in junior high school when, with a VHS camera, she made horror films. High school saw Passoni’s filmmaking turn experimental, but she […]
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 19, 2020
