A CURATED PROGRAM BY VANIA DING
The “coming of age” narrative is well established as a classic story structure, one that has become so well-used that a gap has formed between what is presented as “growing up” and the true difficulties of forming your identity within a shifting, chaotic culture. This program is an attempt to capture the mixed emotions that come from experiencing adolescence within a society transitioning into a new, digital age.
The emotions I’m invoking come from personal experience living between the perceptions of the internet as an exciting equalizer and a frightening force of radicalization. Instead of “growing pains,” a phrase that points to temporary setbacks or obstacles, experiencing heightened responsibilities and a greater awareness of the world around them alerts this generation to a growing pain. Pain that starts from the previous generation and the next one inherits.
With this in mind, the films within this program deal with aspects of horror, absurdity, and humor while portraying a heightened look into transformations and transitions. While adolescence is a time for children to transform into adults, it’s also a time for generation trauma and other societal problems to become their responsibilities. While horror and uncertainty remain large parts of the journey portrayed here, the ridiculous actions and absurdist comedy pull from typical humorous tones around the web.
From participating in trends, processing trauma, taking up “adult” activities, and establishing your place in a hyper-niche culture, growing pain’s films portray and question what maturing means and how the developing internet plays a role in it.
Roy Purdy’s #RunningManChallenge (Dance Video)
Roy Purdy / 2016 / United States of America / 1:03
Within the first notes of Ghost Town DJ’s song “My Boo,” Roy Purdy busts out into dance through his crowded school halls. What is derivative of other videos made for the “Running Man Challenge” internet trend becomes a performance against social norms here. As Purdy dances, others continue their daily routine. The few that acknowledge the presence of Purdy and camera only highlight the disturbance he causes. As this video launched Roy Purdy into internet stardom and a career off of exaggerating this carefree disturbance, the transition between breaking out of traditional normality and creating a new normal is captured.
questions for the filmmaker:
- Looking back on this video and its sudden success, what aspects of your persona did you find yourself adopting afterwards?
- Was there any discomfort performing in public and did the fact that this was an internet challenge change your comfort levels in filming this?
Picture Particles
Thorsten Fleisch / 2014 / Germany / 5:39
Thorsten Fleish’s manipulation of found Super 8 footage creates a dizzying effect where the remains of images transition into entirely new forms. The found footage was cut to small pieces and combined with 16 mm & 35 mm film through optical printing and reshooting the projected material. Afterwards, the feedback loop created was transferred to video. The flickering images paired with a buzzing, jarring sound that changes as the film progresses highlights how transformation is both visual and physical. While the cut-up film’s texture cannot be felt, it can be heard.
questions for the filmmaker:
- When piecing together this footage, could you describe what your thought process was when deciding to use 16 mm & 35 mm film with your Super 8 footage?
- Were there any connections between your sonic choices and the transitions between chaotic imagery into more discernible patterns?
The eye was in the tomb and stared at Daney
Chloé Galibert-Laîné / 2017 / France / 10:08
This essay film was inspired by Serge Daney’s text on “Eyes Without a Face” (Georges Franju, 1960). Daney describes a sound which haunts him and Chloé Galibert-Laîné proceeds to show her own fears. The creeping terror of facing her cinematic trauma is emphasized through her clever use of perspective as the viewer takes in her computer desktop as the visual ground to explore. It’s an area that invites autonomy and yet we are provided none. Galibert-Laîné explores the connection between remembrance and reality, providing new questions on how we process and change through what we experience.
questions for the filmmaker:
- Why use your desktop as the setting for your film? Was it to distance the viewer from the subject matter, to draw them into the research process, or some other motive?
- What does overcoming fear mean for your experience with cinema? When you create moments of terror, are you trying to encourage your audience to grow from facing this existence?
Necktie
Yorgos Lanthimos / 2013 / Greece / 1:30
Two girls pick pistols. They fire. Yorgos Lanthimos’s short film made for the Venezia 70 – Future Reloaded project, celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Venice Film Festival, is both simple and confounding. The children gather for a duel, a somber affair that ends with a strange statement: “I have more memories than if I was a thousand-year-old.” The bleak humor shines through as the children carry a corpse through the woods. As the project’s theme was “Cinema and its future,” children dealing with problems through an archaic method may be the joke in itself.
questions for the filmmaker:
- Why decide on this morbid premise for a theme about the future of cinema?
- What about cinema combines the young and the archaic? With today’s internet culture expanding the amount and types of media available for the coming generations, how do you interpret its influence on new cinephiles?
American Autumn
Albert Moya / 2012 / United States of America / 20:46
Albert Moya skewers the daily concerns and petty dramas of New York socialites through this comedic short where four old friends have a dinner party. Within the ideas of losing touch as of what’s important as you progress through life, the loss of understanding between the child actors’ delivery and the context force new ways to see an “adult” life and all the ways people never grow up. The tension between the over-dramatic details of these characters’ lives and the tongue-in-cheek presentation of the story pokes fun at the silly standards of maturity.
questions for the filmmaker:
- Why choose to focus on an upper-class, urban adult life to parody with your child actors?
- How did you direct your actors with a script that was beyond their personal experiences and what was your goal in having this emotional gap for your actors to deal with?
Lance Lizardi
Xander Robin / 2017 / United States of America / 8:17
Xander Robin’s strange, Florida-based short invokes themes around identity and obsession. As the self-named Lance Lizardi explores his love for lizards, Robin shows snippets of his life through the internet as Lizardi meets with other lizard enthusiasts and undergoes a transformation. What is shown here wouldn’t be out of place during a late-night internet scroll. For people who find their callings within a world that allows them to create a new persona online, it’s easy to let these personas consume you. Robin capitalizes on this, framing in a new light how our identities take shape in an era of obsession.
questions for the filmmaker:
- In your depiction of Lizardis’s growing obsession, you put segments of internet usage within your film. Could you describe more how you interpret the internet’s ability to encourage people into information rabbit-holes?
- While Lizardi does not go through a full body transformation, he does gain a lizard-like tongue that we also see from another lizard enthusiast. What is the role of transformation here, especially in the relationship Lizardi has with other lizard lovers versus his conflict with his mother?