LANCE LIZARDI
2017 · 8m · USA
Directed by Xander Robin
Genres: documentary, experimental
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, surreal
A Florida man legally changes his last name to Lizardi and lets his reptile obsession consume his entire identity — filmed as a video-art memoir that follows his escalating transformation as he ventures into the Everglades chasing rare creatures, lets lizards dangle from his ears by their teeth, and teaches himself to chirp at gators.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A man becomes a lizard through sheer force of taxonomic will, and the Borscht Corporation commissions it — this is the only correct use of the short film format.
Xander Robin commissioned by Borscht Corp — a Florida-weird memoir where the subject also shoots, making the documentary apparatus part of the obsession. The Miami video-art lineage at its most honest.
A Florida man legally changes his name to Lizardi and shoots his own escalation into lizard obsession — AFI Fest, BAMcinemafest, Borscht-commissioned. The subject-as-DP collapses memoir and ethnography in a way that sounds genuinely unhinged in the best sense.
Reviews
The film starts out as a video art memoir made by an eccentric 'Florida Man' who's really into lizards. But something deeper gets unleashed within Lance.
Festivals
- AFI Fest 2017
- BAMcinemaFest 2017
- New Hampshire Film Festival 2017