(MONTCLAIR, NJ) PEAK Performances at Montclair State University continues to introduce audiences to new work from today’s most exciting dance artists with the world premiere of Movement, in which celebrated choreographer Netta Yerushalmy intricately quilts together quotations from a vast array of sources: folk dances, traditional dances and ceremonies, modern and contemporary concert dance, commercial dance, sports, and contemporary life. The work draws from over 100 existing dances, stretching the idea of pluralism until it almost snaps. Movement features a new score by award-winning composer Paula Matthusen and is performed by dancers hailing from Korea, Senegal, Israel, Taiwan, and across the U.S.
Erin Vassilopoulos makes her directorial debut with a dramatic thriller about estranged twin sisters reuniting when one is in danger.
Much of Erin Vassilopoulos’ moody, something’s-wrong-in-the-suburbs directorial debut,
Superior, takes place in a Reagan-era Barbie Dreamhouse come to life. Within its mint and pink-punch walls live Vivian (Ani Mesa) and Michael (Jake Hoffman), a young couple who are dismayed when her estranged twin sister, Marian (Alessandra Mesa, Ani’s own twin), a touring rock musician, drops by unannounced during a thawing winter and asks to stay for a few days. On the run from a young man (Pico Alexander) who looks like he’s doing rockabilly-hitman cosplay with his slicked-back hair, too-shiny leather trench and ominous leather gloves, Marian dreams that he breaks into her sister’s home at night, calming the couple’s three huskies so he can finish what he started.
Ani and
Superior in 2015,
Erin Vassilopoulos returns to the Sundance Film Festival with her feature directorial debut with an expansion of that same narrative world.
Superior (2021) brings the trio of collaborators back together in a refreshingly nostalgic form of filmmaking, that leans on its 1980s time period, while also injecting a modern flare of stylistic choices.
Vassilopoulos spoke with Film Inquiry about the film during its premiere at the 2021 edition of the Sundance Film Festival.
source: Sundance Film Festival
Wilson Kwong for Film Inquiry:
Superior is essentially a sequel to your short film from 2015. I see a lot of people adapting their shorts into feature films, but not necessarily expanding on them on a continuing narrative level. Why did you decide to make that creative choice?
2021 Sundance Film Festival Review – Superior
Starring Alessandra Mesa, Ani Mesa, Pico Alexander, Jake Hoffman, and Stanley Simons.
SYNOPSIS:
On the run, Marian returns to her hometown to hide out with her identical twin sister, Vivian, and in doing so alters the trajectory of both their lives.
In what’s sure to be one of the most audacious feature debuts of this year’s Sundance, Erin Vassilopoulos’
Superior – an expansion of her 2015 short of the same name – is a fascinating, often Lynchian study of dualism that tempers its wilder creative inclinations with two outstanding lead performances.
In a powerfully staged opening scene, Marian (Alessandra Mesa) escapes the clutches of her violently abusive boyfriend Robert (Pico Alexander), commandeering their car and running Robert over in the process. Marian’s first stop is her estranged, identical twin sister Vivian (Ani Mesa), disrupting her dull, pedestrian life in Upstate New York where she lives with her effete
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21 Films to See at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival
The first-ever virtual fest kicks off this week with movies featuring stars like Rita Moreno, Vanessa Kirby, and Daniel Kaluuya. Glen Wilson, Courtesy of Sundance Institute
A look at the buzziest prospects at this year s festival which will be accessible online to movie lovers from around the world for the first-time ever from documentaries to dramas and next year s awards contenders.
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