Chasing the Party
2025 · 14m
Directed by Jessie Komitor
Genres: coming-of-age, drama
Two suburban teens fantasize about becoming downtown 'it' girls, but a night out with an idolized photographer shatters their illusions.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The disillusionment angle is solid, but the setup—twee suburban girls chasing downtown cool—treads pretty well-worn ground; what saves it is whether Komitor commits to actually *darkening* the tender bits instead of just noting their coexistence.
A film operating confidently within the coming-of-age tradition, using the photographer-as-mirror device to interrogate aspiration and image; the formal question—how to visualize the gap between fantasy and reality—feels classically considered.
The entire film turns on how Komitor photographs the moment the girls realize the photographer sees *through* them rather than sees *them*, and that shift in framing and focus is what makes the disillusionment land instead of feel inevitable.
Reviews
Writer/director Jessie Kormitor's Chasing the Party is arguably the best short in the program. While Chasing the Party gets creepy as Staten says and does things that make Melissa uncomfortable, Ryan delivers an astute performance that captures her conflicting emotions.