Feature Film Program
My First Film
North American Premiere! As her “first film” falls apart, director Zia Anger stages a lyrical auto-critique that probes the nature of artistic truth.
Thu Jun 20 8:00 PM
The Film
My First Film
Zia Anger | US | 100
Following the success of Anger’s 2019 multimedia performance of the same name, My First Film marks a return to the ground zero of Anger’s artistic development: her lost film, Always All Ways, Anne Marie, which she worked on from 2010 to 2012. In a departure from the performance’s screen-shared visuals and typed-out inner monologue, Anger’s feature debut is a dramatization of that disastrous shoot and its untold truths; an autofictional nesting doll.
Nearly 15 years later, Vita (Odessa Young), recounts making her first feature - a semi-autobiographical film about a young woman who gets pregnant and decides to leave home, starring her friend Dina (Devon Ross). Being an enthusiastic but inexperienced filmmaker the shoot is chaotic, and Vita’s ego-tripping methods cause a near-death accident. As Vita’s “first film” falls apart, Anger stages a lyrical self-critique that probes the nature of artistic truth and personal mythmaking, all while upending the strictures of traditional memoir. Courtesy of MUBI.
Nearly 15 years later, Vita (Odessa Young), recounts making her first feature - a semi-autobiographical film about a young woman who gets pregnant and decides to leave home, starring her friend Dina (Devon Ross). Being an enthusiastic but inexperienced filmmaker the shoot is chaotic, and Vita’s ego-tripping methods cause a near-death accident. As Vita’s “first film” falls apart, Anger stages a lyrical self-critique that probes the nature of artistic truth and personal mythmaking, all while upending the strictures of traditional memoir. Courtesy of MUBI.
Performer
Raia Was
With her name nodding to the past, Raia Was is the project of an old soul. Raised by her mother in Downtown Manhattan, she began performing as a teenager, holding a weekly residency at a piano bar on Avenue B and accumulating hundreds of hours of performance experience before beginning her professional career. Having grown up in the scene, Raia Was is a mainstay within the NY indie community, recording and touring as a vocalist and keyboard player before finally stepping into her own solo project as a performer.
Raia Was has an exceptional ability to push the boundaries of genre and create magnetic work that is honest in its exploration of the intricacies of everyday life. She performs a controlled suite of music with a rare brooding intensity and haunting sense of color and space set amidst her irreverent mix-and-match approach to live arranging.
On her self-produced sophomore LP Captain Obvious, her stylized take on experimental pop is being placed in the company of Weyes Blood, Mitski and Kate Bush. Her music as been featured in HBO’s Euphoria, on NPR’s All Songs Considered, in NYLON and Under The Radar Magazine. “Everyone who jumped on the Kate Bush bandwagon should get on board the Raia Was bus” (Riff Magazine).
Raia Was has an exceptional ability to push the boundaries of genre and create magnetic work that is honest in its exploration of the intricacies of everyday life. She performs a controlled suite of music with a rare brooding intensity and haunting sense of color and space set amidst her irreverent mix-and-match approach to live arranging.
On her self-produced sophomore LP Captain Obvious, her stylized take on experimental pop is being placed in the company of Weyes Blood, Mitski and Kate Bush. Her music as been featured in HBO’s Euphoria, on NPR’s All Songs Considered, in NYLON and Under The Radar Magazine. “Everyone who jumped on the Kate Bush bandwagon should get on board the Raia Was bus” (Riff Magazine).
Event Details
8:00 PM
Doors Open
8:30 PM
Live Music from Raia Was
9:00 PM
Film Begins
10:30 PM
Q&A with filmmaker Zia Anger and actor Odessa Young
10:45 PM
Afterparty, sponsored by Ketel One Family Made Vodka
Venue
The Old American Can Factory
232 Third St., Brooklyn, NY 11215
The show presented in partnership with
