Fucked Like a Star
From the Archives
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Short Films, 26-Aug-2020
A poetic meditation on women's work and the dream life of ants, set to the words of Toni Morrison. Directed by Stefani Saintonge, “Fucked Like a Star” is a lovely translation and a profound rumination on the natural world. Told in four parts, the film is rendered with all the complexity of the source material, visualized in the micro and macro (ants in extreme close-ups underneath vast foggy hills). The ant world, mostly female, with its “organization so tight and sacrifice so complete,” is no place for dreams or memories, but rather an ancient sense of work and procreation. Saintonge introduces a human element with visuals of women braiding hair as effortlessly and efficiently as ants marching in formation, and with a young couple riding a motorcycle over picturesque vistas. For a moment, Morrison considers an ant having a human-like response to a sexual experience — remembered as a lucid, striking encounter as a Summer storm rolls in — moving the collective into the personal, a vivid pivot which the film represents beautifully. -KA. Director, Cinematographer, Editor: Stefani Saintonge. Executive Producer: Zuri Obi. Voiceover text excerpted from “Tar Baby,” by Toni Morrison. Producers: Stefani Saintonge, Zuri Obi, Chanelle Aponte Pearson. Voiceover: Christine Smith.
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