Buzzkill
2022 · 10m · USA
Directed by Kathy Mitrani
Genres: coming-of-age, drama
Tones: melancholic, tender, tense
Adrian, a young girl in South Florida, will do whatever it takes — including breaking into a private pool — to win the approval of a roving pack of teenagers. The 16mm visuals catch the heat and the hierarchies of suburban summer.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Sweaty 16mm coming-of-age that refuses to tidy the cruelty of pre-teen pecking orders. South Florida humidity doing more work than most screenplays manage in 90 minutes.
Mitrani's 16mm South Florida is shot with the heat-haze attentiveness Andrea Arnold brings to hierarchies of belonging. Initiation-as-trespass is well-trodden but the tactile particularity here promises something more than another sun-drenched Sean Baker imitation.
That 16mm grain on South Florida pool-trespass nights is exactly the texture this kind of teen-pack story needs — heat radiates off the format itself. Pool-break as proof-of-loyalty is a clean, specific initiation beat.
Reviews
Mitrani's film beautifully captures the rhythms and desires of youth with immersive scene-building and tactile 16mm visuals