EXCLUSIVE: Mubi has recently wrapped production on Zia Anger’s feature film debut, My First Film. starring Odessa Young and Devon Ross.
The film is an adaptation of Anger’s critically acclaimed live cinema performance piece of the same name.
The movie is an intimate examination of cinema, body and truth. It centers around Odessa Young (a young filmmaker) who tells the story about her struggles to make her first feature. Fiction can bleed into fact, and the past and present merge to create a modern myth which redefines and expands creation.
Anger is renowned for her performance art and accomplishments in moving image, including collaborations with various artists including Mitski, Beach House, Maggie Rogers, and Jenny Hval; the latter of whom she also toured with – as a performer and stage director.
MUBI will be producing at MEMORY with Taylor Shung, Riel Roch–Decter. Billy Feldman wrote the pic.
Cole Doman rounds out the cast (Starfuckers), Jane Wickline, Philip Ettinger (First Reform), Eamon Farren (The Witcher), Eleonore Hendricks (Heaven Knows Everything(), Sage Ftacek and Jackson Anthony, Seth Steinberg; Hailey Gates, Sarah Michelson and Ruby Max Fury. Young’s previous credits include Shirley, Mothering Sunday And Assassination Nation Ross was a star in the HBO Max series. Irmavep.
Shung and Roch-Decter claimed: “As a platform and distributor MUBI’s taste in bold cinema and ambitious artists is unparalleled so the opportunity to bring Zia’s uncompromising vision to audiences with the backing of MUBI felt to us like some magical, beautiful act of destiny.”
My First Film DP Ashley Connor shot the imagesMadeline’s MadelineDes Hamilton (casted at )NymphomaniacSophie Pearson (Jojo Rabbit), and edited byJoe Bini (American Honey). Stephen Phelps Rachel Dainer-Best, led production designThe Pieces of a Woman The film’s Costume Designer was I.
MUBI’s other productions include Mia Hansen-Løve’s One Fine Morning, Ekwa Msangi’s Sundance prize-winner Farewell Amor, Rachel Lang’s Our MenAnd MemoryMichel Franco was announced at the Cannes Film Festival this summer. MEMORY has worked with artists such as Theo Anthony, Dean Fleischer-Camp and Celia Rowlson-Hall, the studio also produced and distributed Zia’s My First Film International performance. Anger is represented by CAA and Victoria Cook of Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz. Young is represented in CAA, Echo Lake Entertainment, and Jim Gilio from Sloane, Offer, Weber and Dern LLP. CAA is representing MEMORY. CAA Media Finance and MUBI negotiated the deal.