Bowling 4 Eva
From the Archives
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Drama, Short Films, 27-Mar-2023
A troubled teen girl spends her time trolling men online and bowling with her grandfather while becoming increasingly medicated. “Bowling 4 Eva,” directed by Aelfie Oudghiri, is a bracingly original portrait of depression and pharmaceuticals rendered with satirical bite and punctuated by animated sequences of a talking bowling ball. The 14-year-old, Tina, spends her days in her family’s mansion on constant suicide watch after being kicked out of boarding school. Routine trips to her psychiatrist result in ever more prescriptions, the latest of which is a loneliness inhibitor called Tranqulia (as her psychiatrist drinks from a Tranquilia mug). Over-medicated and losing touch with reality, Tina becomes fixated on the sport of bowling and begins to fade into another realm. Oudghiri’s film is something like a death metal opera, a poetic study on teenhood dissociation and the fumbling reactions coming from authority figures. -KA. Writer, director: Aelfie Oudghiri. Starring Olivia Liang. Director of Photography: Zev Starr-Tambor. Produced by Rachel Walden (GUMMY Films). Editor/Colorist: Luca Balser. Score & Sound Design: Josh Ascalon. VFX: Will Rahilly. Animation: Nathan Die. UPM: David Mcveigh Jr. Gaffer: Eli Freireich.
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