At times, independent film can be a homogenous place for women. Since the Lena Dunham boom, tastemakers obsessively concern themselves with tales of 20-something perpetual adolescents, jobless and adrift in Brooklyn, looking for love in all the wrong places. Not so much a tonic as a blast of originality, Eliza Hittman’s It Felt Like Love announced the arrival of one of the most assured and exciting young filmmakers in recent memory when it premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Though the film’s narrative may not seem entirely unfamiliar — we’re still coming of age in Brooklyn, experimenting sexually — Hittman’s atmospheric […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 19, 2014With its famously catholic tastes and sprawling slate, the International Film Festival Rotterdam is a place to get lost. A week into its 10-day run, a fairly subdued 42nd edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam has unfurled a smattering of buzz-worthy world premieres and its usual mix of budding talents from unusually farflung spots on the globe, high-art provocations, exhaustive considerations of an emerging national cinema or two and obscure auteur retrospectives. However, I’ve found that it’s always the surprises here that grab you, little films you’d otherwise never see except in this context, that make the trip worthwhile. I […]
by Brandon Harris on Jan 30, 2013Coming of age tales are a longstanding mainstay of the Sundance Film Festival, but few films tackle the well-tread genre with the unsentimental eye of It Felt Like Love. The debut feature from filmmaker Eliza Hittman, It Felt Like Love stars first-time actress Gina Piersanti as fourteen-year old Lila, a Brooklyn native who spends her summer pursuing a love affair with an older teen. The film premieres today in the Sundance Film Festival’s NEXT section. Filmmaker: Your previous short, Forever’s Gonna Start Tonight, deals with themes similar to It Felt Like Love. How did your experience making that film, and […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Jan 19, 2013[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 19, 6:00pm — Yarrow Hotel Theatre, Park City] It Felt Like Love is about a young girl struggling to form connections — with herself, her peers, and with an intriguing older guy she sees on Rockaway beach — and her willingness to degrade herself to experience intimacy. When I started writing, in 2011, I wanted to create an unsentimental coming-of-age film and show outtakes from childhood: the lonely moments, the surges of false confidence, and small humiliating details that are often buried in our memories. I wanted to explore taboos around female adolescent sexuality and identity. […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 18, 2013