Staging Anna
2023 · 20m · USA
Directed by K.M. Murphy
Tones: dark, tense, theatrical
A theater company preparing for season previews falls under the grip of a manipulative director whose psychological methods corrode the boundary between performance and reality, threatening one young actor in particular.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A theater film about manipulation is almost too on-the-nose, but Murphy keeps twisting the knife past the point where you can laugh it off — by the end the stage and the abuse are completely inseparable.
K.M. Murphy's theater-company manipulation drama has insider texture — the director's own stunt-performer background gives the depicted abuse a lived-not-observed quality the Whiplash-adjacent setup needs.
A director who's also a working stunt performer making a film about a manipulative theater director — the insider quality is the pitch. At 20 minutes the cat-and-mouse psychological dynamic has time to land or curdle.
Reviews
Calderón delivers an exceptional performance, playing favorites with the cast and working his manipulative techniques on a young actor
Festivals
- Texas Theater 2024