If you grew up in the era of Britney Spears fever and thought a schoolgirl uniform was the height of sexiness and cool then Hilary Eden’s evocative debut short Bellybutton will bring you right back to those supposedly young carefree Y2K years. Eden took a core memory from her youth, wrote it into a short story and then after a gentle nudge, launched into the making of her film with a relentless fervour. Bellybutton recounts a foundational moment in time with throbbing nostalgia thanks to meticulous research into those glory days and its use of poignant 16mm cinematography. Alongside her timeless and dreamy visuals, there’s a deeper relatability to Bellybutton which also invites us to look inwards and examine the powerful and all-consuming commercial and cultural forces which have such a formative claim on coming-of-age experiences, both positive and negative. As her film premieres online on Dn...
- 7/25/2023
- by Sarah Smith
- Directors Notes
Scripted, acted and designed by Chinese immigrant Zita Bai, “Baby, Don’t Cry” is a different coming-of-age film that focuses on the marginalized of Seattle, without necessarily providing a message of hope, in an approach that allows it to stand as far out from the plethora of sugar-coated, romantic teenage films as possible.
“Baby Don’t Cry” is screening at Fantasia International Film Festival
Baby is a 17-year-old Chinese immigrant who dreams of becoming a filmmaker one day and moving to Los Angeles. However, her life is not exactly paving her way, since she is completely marginalized in school, her mother seems to suffer from some sort of mental illness, which frequently makes her abusive towards her daughter, while she also has to clean houses in order to make a living. Her only solace is constantly recording with her phone everything she finds interesting, a fixation on dead things, and occasionally the world of dreams.
“Baby Don’t Cry” is screening at Fantasia International Film Festival
Baby is a 17-year-old Chinese immigrant who dreams of becoming a filmmaker one day and moving to Los Angeles. However, her life is not exactly paving her way, since she is completely marginalized in school, her mother seems to suffer from some sort of mental illness, which frequently makes her abusive towards her daughter, while she also has to clean houses in order to make a living. Her only solace is constantly recording with her phone everything she finds interesting, a fixation on dead things, and occasionally the world of dreams.
- 8/15/2021
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
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