38th edition 2023 feature films
Ann, a thirty-year-old New Yorker, shares her candid account of submission. Her personal encounters, professional relationships, her family and friends turn into delightful opportunities to play.
Joanna Arnow is a director, screenwriter and actress based in New York. Her films include the very personal documentary I Hate Myself :) (2013), and the shorts Bad at Dancing (winner of the Berlinale Jury Prize in 2015) and Laying Out (2019). Her first feature film, The feeling that the time for doing something has passed, was selected at the Directors’ Fortnight in 2023.
- Scénario
- Joanna ARNOW
- Photographie
- Barton CORTRIGHT
- Son
- Maxwell DIPAOLO, Matt LIEBOWITZ, Edwin DIAGON
- Montage
- Joanna ARNOW
- Musique
- Robinson SENPAUROCA
- Décors
- Grace SLOAN
- Production
- Graham SWON (Ravenser Odd)
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A word from the selection committee :
In I Hate Myself :) (2013), Joanna Arnow brazenly displayed her complex relationship between her and her - somewhat crazy, and often unbearable - boyfriend. Beyond the initial awkwardness, viewers discovered a powerful work on self-assertion in an increasingly normative society. As Joanna Arnow moves from documentary to fiction, she changes lens to delve deeper into the theme portraying the everyday tedium of a thirty-year-old New Yorker as she opens herself to new opportunities; whether it be in her family life, her sexual relationships, her bullshit job, and even - why not, - an a genuine romance. There is a stark contrast between “Ann’s life” and “Life according to Ann”. Balancing deadpan humour and generosity, Joanna Arnow’s films let the many facets of her characters shine through. Little habits and lofty aspirations are to be taken seriously: like Ann’s transient BDSM relationships, they make up the various means through which she decides to assert her own rules for living, while our ultra-liberal society seems to imprison us. Ideally, she would do exactly what her yoga instructor - paid for by her employer - advises: “There’s more to you than your work, more than your body.”
- Vincent Poli