# terrifyingly funny / Instagram / mindfulness / personal development / kangaroo / bachelorette party / LGBT / friends forever / macabre / wedding / Instastory / grotesque / Polish premiere
SISSY
comedy, horror / Australia / 2022 / 1h 42min
All my followers are dead
The main character of ‘Sissy’ is well… Sissy (though she prefers ‘Cecilia’), a young Australian who suffers from low self-esteem. She boosts it by posting on her Instagram account followed by 200,000 people. There, she portrays herself otherwise: confident, considerate, focused on her well-being, and helping others. This lace-woven image of Sissy turns out to be as brittle as glass.
One day, she is invited by an old best friend to a bachelorette party in an isolated Australian thicket. Initially, Sissy doesn’t feel like going because she senses that the reunion will resurrect the old demons. And she’s right. What was supposed to be a pleasant weekend in the bosom of nature turns into a bloodbath. Gruesome to the point of grotesque. So suspenseful that you won’t even think about checking what’s up on Instagram while watching.
In ‘Sissy’, suggestive violence intertwines with candy reality, and cries of terror – with the sound of Instagram notifications. It’s a killer combination that makes the film a bareback ride. It’s also a painful, although sometimes terrifyingly funny, mockery of our obsession with social media and empty slogans about mental health.
‘Sissy’ is the second work of Hannah Barlow (she directed it and wrote it together with Kane Sanes, the filmmaker of the award-winning short ‘A Relative Stranger’), who plays a significant role in her own film, Emma, a former friend of Sissy who is leaving the maidenhood behind.
The title role – daringly and brilliantly walking a thin line between sensitivity and madness – is played by Aisha Dee, known, among others, from the series ‘The Bold Type’. However, it is Emily De Margheriti who steals the show as the uptight, annoyed, and resentful Alex, the girl with whom Sissy has an unresolved matter from the past. What might that be? The clue is a long, jagged scar on Alex’s jaw.
‘Sissy’ is a comedy horror, in which tension is quickly replaced with laughter, seriousness with grotesque, and blood has a fashionable shade of pink with a sprinkle of glitter. Comedy, however, doesn’t obscure the message of ‘Sissy’. With its perverse ending, the film makes a monkey out of the viewer and ensures that ‘Sissy’ will not be forgotten for quite some time after watching.
directors and screenplay: Hannah Barlow i Kane Senes cast: Aisha Dee, Hannah Barlow, Emily De Margheriti, Yerin Ha, Lucy Barrett, Daniel Monks photography director: Steve Arnold editing: Margi Hoy music: Kenneth Lampl language: angielski subtitles: polskie
WORLD PREMIERE: South by Southwest Film Festival 2022 age restrictions: 16+
