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Our projected identities—and the constant performance inherent in presenting ourselves—fuel the surrealist philosophy of Ted Schaefer’s Giving Birth to a Butterfly. The filmmaker’s directorial debut, from a script he co-wrote with author Patrick Lawler, delves into a psychedelic psychology of what truly constitutes “the self” (very fitting for a collaborative duo who met through a mutual therapist). Giving Birth to a Butterfly largely consists of a roadtrip odyssey shared by Diana (Annie Parisse), a pharmacist stuck in an unfulfilling marriage to aspiring chef Daryl (Paul Sparks), and Marlene (Gus Birney), a heavily pregnant young woman who’s dating Diana’s son Drew […]

The post “It Really Does Take a Village”: Ted Schaefer on Giving Birth to a Butterfly first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Our projected identities—and the constant performance inherent in presenting ourselves—fuel the surrealist philosophy of Ted Schaefer’s Giving Birth to a Butterfly. The filmmaker’s directorial debut, from a script he co-wrote with author Patrick Lawler, delves into a psychedelic psychology of what truly constitutes “the self” (very fitting for a collaborative duo who met through a mutual therapist). Giving Birth to a Butterfly largely consists of a roadtrip odyssey shared by Diana (Annie Parisse), a pharmacist stuck in an unfulfilling marriage to aspiring chef Daryl (Paul Sparks), and Marlene (Gus Birney), a heavily pregnant young woman who’s dating Diana’s son Drew […]

The post “It Really Does Take a Village”: Ted Schaefer on Giving Birth to a Butterfly first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Chez Jolie Coiffure (Rosine Mbakam)

A vérité vignette of a small, expat-owned hair salon in Brussels’ African Quarter. Award-winning Cameroonian filmmaker Rosine Mbakam’s sophomore feature explores displacement, resilience, and the small economies migrants build to temper ties to their homelands, through mid-braid gossip and humble confessions.

Where to Stream: Le Cinéma Club

Giving Birth to a Butterfly (Theodore Schaefer)

We meet Diana Dent (Annie Parisse) readying matching wedding gowns soon revealed as not her own. She’s mending them to sell online—a necessity considering her bull-headed and controlling husband Daryl (Paul Sparks) is hell-bent on putting their life savings towards a dream of creating his own restaurant. That means no money for Drew (Owen Campbell) or Danielle’s (Rachel Resheff) college.

If directors David Lynch and Darren Aronofsky went on a road trip through working class America to meet a long-lost cousin, surely filmmaker Theodore Schaefer would come along for the ride. That’s the vibe you get when watching Giving Birth to a Butterfly, Schaefer’s moving, sometimes haunting, yet thoroughly intriguing debut feature. Shot on pastel 16mm, this film drips with achiness as it follows a mysterious road trip taken by two relative strangers whose lives are brought together by chance.

If you’re into surreal, fantasy-like outings in the vein of Twin Peaks, or even one of those alt-universe Riverdale seasons, Giving Birth to a Butterfly should do the trick. What works in Schaefer’s favor, however, is that he grounds his story, which was co-written with screenwriter Patrick Lawler, in something relatable: a family surviving economic hardship and layers of unexpressed emotions.

The film stars Annie Parisse...

If anyone is complaining that Hollywood has "run out of ideas" and that everything is a remake or sequel, they'd do well to research a small but burgeoning new crop of post-digital indie films that tap into the dread, anxieties, and sometimes comical surreality of our present age. These movies are often a little creepy, boldly ambiguous, a bit hazy, and a potent antidote to mainstream cinema. Embracing 16mm film, unique aspect ratios like 1.2:1, shorter runtimes, and small stories, these independent films couldn't be more different than the bloated three-hour-long CGI spectacles in theaters.

In the past two years, Enys Men, Funny Pages, Falcon Lake, Tahara, Skinamarink, and We're All Going to the World's Fair have exemplified this new post-digital style, and one of the producers of that latter title, the surprisingly successful World's Fair film, has now added to the movement with his own film. Theodore Schaefer's debut feature film,...

Tolstoy once famously wrote that every unhappy family is unhappy in their own way. You could substitute the word 'unhappy' for 'eccentric' or 'detached from reality'. It's not uncommon for married couples, and their children as they grow into their teen and early adult years, to find themselves separated in wants and needs, the result of personalities that evolve overtime, and more often than not in the contemporary world, the problems of simply trying to exist without constant worry about money and survival. What would our identities and existences be if we didn't have these pressures on us, if we were completely divorced from family obligations? Giving Birth to a Butterfly, the feature debut of director and co-writer Theodore Schaefer, follows an odd road trip...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

The suburbs are often touted as nice, normal places, when really they are anything but. They always a feeling of falseness, of artificiality and a forced kind of community that is anything but, and a place that is so easy to be lost in. No wonder American films, in particular, have shown the true weirdness of these spaces and the affect they have on the people. Then there's the road trip - while common across cinemas, the vast distances in North America lend itself again, to the weirdness that comes from isolation. And these two worlds seem to collide in Theodore Schaefer's Giving Birth to a Butterfly. After its premiere in 2021 at Fantasia, we're glad to see that Cinedigm has picked it up for...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Giving Birth To A Butterfly Photo: Fantasia International Film Festival

It is, without doubt, one of the most unusual films at 2021’s Fantasia International Film Festival, and one that viewers won’t forget in a hurry. Following Diana (Annie Parisse), a woman who, upon realising she has been the victim of an internet scam, embarks on a road trip with her son’s girlfriend which takes her to some very strange places, Giving Birth To A Butterfly has a distinctive look, a quirky sense of humour and a surprising amount of philosophical weight. After I bumped into director Theodore Schaeffer (generally known as Ted) at a karaoke night at the festival, we agreed to do an interview so that he could talk about how this strange beast originally emerged from its chrysalis.

“My writing partner Patrick Lawler and I have been working together now for eight years, and we have a lot of scripts,...