You know an artist should be doing one thing particular when even Andrew Bujalski, the godfather of mumblecore, calls their work “excruciating and extraordinary.” But that is the place Brooklyn-based director and comic-book author Joanna Arnow is correct now, after a string of darkly humorous shorts that is likely to be stated to mix the sexual candor of early Chantal Akerman with the sardonic humor of Todd Solondz.
Cannes audiences, then, should brace themselves for her characteristic debut, The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed, which premieres within the pageant’s Directors’ Fortnight part and which she describes as “a mosaic-style comedy following the life of a woman as time passes in her long-term casual BDSM relationship, low-level corporate job, and quarrelsome Jewish family.”
Read the digital version of Deadline’s Disruptors/Cannes journal right here.
Surprisingly — or maybe not, given the genesis of her best-known movie I hate myself, a documentary that began to take a brand new route when a bitter row with a boyfriend was unintentionally recorded — Arnow was anticipating to debut with a unique film. “But my previous project had gotten delayed,” she says, “and I needed to feel artistically engaged with something new.”
Similarly, she hadn’t all the time deliberate to be a director. “I wanted to be an actor when I was growing up, but in college I was too nervous to audition. I didn’t quite know what to do after giving up in a big way, until I was blown away by a history of world cinema class and decided to divert my interests into film.”
As somebody who thinks she shares “a lot” with George Costanza in Seinfeld, Arnow is thrilled to debut in Cannes. “I hope people think it’s funny, and that they will relate to the absurd humor of a character figuring out how to be. I’m overjoyed the film is screening at Cannes and grateful to be included in such an amazing lineup. I’ve been trying to make a first feature for the past eight years, and I never expected something like this would be at the end of the road.”
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