Ivan Radford | On 15, Sep 2024

Director: Zia Anger
Cast: Odessa Young, Devon ROss, Cole Doman, Sage Ftacek, Jane Wickline, Seth Steinberg, Abram Kurtz
Certificate: TBC

If you were to look up “Always All Ways, Anne Marie” on IMDb, you’d see a film listed as “abandoned”. My First Film tells us exactly what happened on that film – and, in doing so, both resurrects the creative ghost and attempts to exorcise it.

Director Zia Anger begins with a note: “This probably shouldn’t be a film.” And, at many times, it isn’t – at least, not what we conventionally think of as one. To begin with, the note is a literally just that: a typed out line of text on a screen. It goes on to note: “I am really happy you are watching.” That introductory text reminds us of two things: first, that art is an intensely personal thing and second, that art doesn’t exist in isolation, only existing when it finds an audience.

Before we even get to the abandoned project, we see other work by Zia – or “Vita” (played by Odessa Young). Specifically, a piece involving one of her mums acting out ovulation through mime. It’s a deeply personal slice of experimental performance, something that’s only reinforced by an arts board deeming it to be too “esoteric” to develop for a wider audience. That leads Vita to go independent, assembling a crew of friends and others willing to work for no money on a microbudget film.

What ensues is chaos, overseen by a young, chaotic artist still trying to figure out her sense of self – and, therefore, still not sure of what kind of leader (let alone storyteller) she wants to be. Control begins to slip away from her, not helped by her boyfriend being needy and insecure enough to interrupt her midshoot to talk about their relationship status. That exchange – just as Vita is trying to get an actor to scream convincingly with enough pain and anguish – gets right to the heart of My First Film, which evolves into a study of creation in itself, delving into parallels between art, cinema and womanhood.

The more entangled that web of themes gets, the more engrossingly thoughtful Zia’s work becomes – it’s a beautifully thoughtful, introspective journey, one that feels raw and honest in its inspection of her flaws and in the messiness of making something exist. For all that intimacy, Zia is bold and confident in mixing form and content – see also Janizca Bravo’z Zola – turning a docudrama into a part-journal, complete with textual commentary and smartphone home videos. The line between her and her work blurs with a profundity that recalls Sandi Tan’s similar but equally unique gem, Shirkers.

A repeated quote from Ukirainian filmmaker Maya Deren reflects on an artist needing to “comprehend with full responsibility the world which we’ve now created”. Over 90 minutes, we see Zia doing just that, understanding and releasing herself from a creative ghost that haunts her, even it turns that ghost into a whole new, permanent entity. “This probably shouldn’t be a film,” she confesses at the start, with a directness that invites us into relationship with what we’re witnessing. The note continues: “But it is.”

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