Em & Selma Go Griffin Hunting
Directed by Alex Thompson
Produced by Pollyanna McIntosh & Milly Shapiro
Written by Alex Thompson
United States | English | 18' | Fantasy, Drama
Set in the countryside of depression-plagued 1930s America, our tale unfolds in an alternate past where adolescent girls are expected to fulfill a longstanding rite in which they hunt and slay a mythical beast of their mother’s choosing, and will not be accepted by society as a “proper woman” until they have fulfilled this sacred rite-of-passage hunt.
Our narrative follows precocious adolescent Em and her mother, Selma, who holds extremely dogmatic views about the particulars of this rite. What should be a day of mother/daughter bonding quickly devolves into chaos as Em begins to question the senseless violence of this arcane ritual, causing a schism between herself and Selma that threatens to turn violent.
One could get lost in the wondrous expanse of director Alexander Thompson’s majestic world, rife with fantastical creatures so alive you feel like you could touch them through the screen. But the most captivating of all is the crucible both mother and daughter endure in introducing young Em into her birthright: Griffin Hunting. Through Selma’s devotion to one singular version of womanhood, and Em’s rejection of it, we all learn the beauty and the brutality of the ways of the wild, which governs us all whether we choose it or not.
Anna Long, Programmer
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