An Athlete Wrestling a Python
2021 · 10m · Australia
Directed by Stephanie Jane Day
Genres: dark comedy, drama
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic, melancholic
An aspiring filmmaker writes and stages a play about her tangled relationship with her father, while everyone around her — family, collaborators, the father himself — drifts in and out of caring. Her creative frustration becomes the play.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Yes, another film about a young filmmaker making a film about her dad — except this one knows that's a joke and runs at it instead of away from it. The title alone tells you Day isn't precious about her own enterprise.
Stephanie Jane Day stages autofiction about autofiction — the play-in-progress is the film. The Souvenir's interest in the failed artistic gesture, with Australian dryness. Confident.
Autofiction-about-autofiction where the work-in-progress is the film you're watching — Stephanie Jane Day's Australian character study has the layered self-awareness this premise needs.
Reviews
An incisive, darkly comedic character study featuring an engrossing and bitterly funny performance.