David Lynch meets John Hughes in the surreally sinister teenage dreams of Jennifer Reeder. Evoking the inner worlds of adolescent girls and women at moments of crisis and transformation, she combines hallucinatory Day-Glo visuals, moody synthscapes, and deliberately kitschy touches—DIY props, talking stuffed animals, references to eighties pop culture—to create an alternate Americana that feels at once familiar and unsettlingly uncanny. Laced with Reeder’s feminist spirit, these spellbinding short films are at once eerie and empowering visions of female coming-of-age in all its wonder, terror, and mystery.
This interview with director Jennifer Reeder was recorded in 2020.
Directed by Jennifer Reeder • 2010 • United States
Starring Darline Jarry, Paula Carter, Jon Osbeck
When a young woman finds the dead body of a teenage girl in the woods, she is forced to confront her greatest fear—her fantastically failing life—in this black comedy about a mother, a daughter, a...
Directed by Jennifer Reeder • 2011 • United States
Starring Gaynelle W. Sloman, Emily Soppe
A lecture on electromagnetism spins off the rails when a sign-language interpreter suffers an epic on-the-job meltdown.
Directed by Jennifer Reeder • 2012 • United States
Starring Katherine Crockett, Kasey Busiel, Grace Etzkorn
A scene from an early draft of director Jennifer Reeder’s feature debut, KNIVES AND SKIN, provided the source for this darkly humorous story about slow jams, bad magic, and a family on the...
Directed by Jennifer Reeder • 2014 • United States
Starring Kelsey Ashby-Middleton, Marissa Castillo, Jennifer Estlin
A woman in crisis and a pack of teenage girls simultaneously experience a supernatural coming-of-age. The transformation is equal parts tense and tender as it unravels to the inf...
Directed by Jennifer Reeder • 2015 • Canada
Starring Kelsey Ashby-Middleton, Morgan S. Reesh, Marissa Castillo
Countdown to prom night is actually countdown to irreversible change for three girls. While two of them fall in love with each other against all expectations, the third is forced to mot...
Directed by Jennifer Reeder • 2016 • United States
Starring Marcela Okeke, Shea Vaughan-Gabor, Kristyn Zoe Wilkerson
A group of girls take over a skate park and form an all-female force field on the half-pipe.
Directed by Jennifer Reeder • 2017 • United States
Starring Levi Huffman, Jimmy Pennington
SHUVIT is a glimpse into a day shared by an extremely sad father and his daredevil son. Each has experienced an especially traumatic afternoon, and although they bond over their love of skateboarding, neit...
Directed by Jennifer Reeder • 2017 • Germany
Starring Sophia Hegarty Scholfield, Katharine Naughton, Yodit Riemersma
This feminist spin on the tale of Hansel and Gretel unfolds in the chaotic aftermath of a planetary catastrophe, as two resilient teenage girls awaken their extrasensory abilities...
