Dream Team, the third feature by Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn, is another in the writer-director duo’s run of genre pastiches that double as sociopolitical parables. Here, the influence of ’90s basic cable TV thrillers is channeled into an episodic story about a pair of Interpol agents (Esther Garrel and Alex Zhang Hungtai) who travel to Mexico to investigate the mysterious death of a corral smuggler. Shot by Horn in characteristically textured 16mm, the film unfolds between a variety of West Coast locales stretching from Baja California to Vancouver. As the body count rises and rumors of a physic coral […]
by Jordan Cronk on Feb 9, 2024Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn (L for Leisure, 25 New Faces of Film) are at work on their next film, Two Plains & a Fancy. This music video for Aa is a taste of what’s to come. Per Kalman and Horn: This viddy was shot when we were on-location for our upcoming feature Two Plains & a Fancy. It’s the first thing we edited when we got back, and Aa is led by our composer John Atkinson, so this was a working out of the vibes we’re corralling in the feature. The footage is a mix of out-takes, B-Roll, and shots […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 15, 2017A period piece best appreciated less for its historical relevance than its microscopic adoration of a forgotten pop zeitgeist, Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn’s L for Leisure is equal part class critique and deadpan laugh riot. Having previously directed the fantastical faux-’80s short Blondes in the Jungle, L for Leisure finds the team exploring the frothy, at times superficial daily activities of a group of well-off, young academics in the ’90s. The characters represent a type you’re fascinated by even as you remind yourself that you wouldn’t want to spend too much time in their presence — at one point in the film, the friends get high […]
by Erik Luers on May 14, 2015