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My First Film (2024)

My First Film (2024)

7.0

Music video director Zia Anger makes her feature debut in this self-reflexive meta drama

Movie

United Kingdom, United States of America
English
Drama
2024

TLDR

Zia Anger, I'm glad you continued making films.

What it's about

Nearly 15 years later, young filmmaker Vita remembers making her first feature, then fuelled by enthusiasm, but also inexperience, which leads to a chaotic shoot.

The take

Aspiring writer-director Vita of My First Film is insufferable. When she starts out making her first feature, she’s pleasantly surprised by the people who came to help her, but the repetition of the shoot, the scene not matching the idea in her head, which she tries to put into image and word, but can’t quite make the vision clear, the anxiety and pressure to be a professional filmmaker blinding her from the concerns of her cast and crew all combine to an inevitable failure of her first feature, which also happens to inspired by Vita’s actual life. Vita is insufferable, but writer-director Zia Anger manages to make her real in an eclectic meta multimedia patchwork that won’t work for everyone, but uniquely depicts an experience filmmakers, aspiring or otherwise, haven’t wanted to talk about.

What stands out

The ending. The pure gratitude of still being able to continue making films, of being able to hold the trust and belief of the cast and crew feels palpable, and tying the whole process with the fictionalized, choreographed abortion is a great choice.

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