KO's CUFF PICK – Turn Me On, Dammit!
The 9th Annual Calgary Underground Film Festival aka CUFFkicks off Monday April 16, 2012 at 7pm with the Screening of the American film God Bless America(Bobcat Goldthwait, 2011, USA). CUFF is a not-for-profit film festival that specializes in bringing contemporary films to Calgary that are not regularly screened outside the festival circuit and defy conventional movies. CUFF contributes to Calgary’s growing film arts scene by introducing Calgarians to local and international independent filmmakers.
Turn Me on, Dammit! (Jannicke Systad Jacobsen, Norway, 2011) is a film about Alma (Helene Bergsholm), a 16-year-old blonde Elle Fanning look-a-like, living in a small rural town in Norway. Alma is consumed by erotic/romantic fantasies of a boy in her school named Artur (Matias Myren). Alma lives with her single mother (played by Henriette Steenstrup), and racks up charges on an adult telephone sex line when her Mom is out at work. Alma’s social world comes crashing down when she is at a party at the local youth center because Artur pokes her in the leg randomly with his erect penis. Alma goes on to tell her friends, Artur denies it happens, everyone teases and ostracizes Alma. Alma goes on to struggle with being an outsider and expressing her sexuality. The story is slightly surreal because of all the fantasy flashbacks.
Stylistically Turn Me on, Dammit!is indigo tinted and the whole film looks like it has been put through Instagram shot-by-shot in the Walden filter. The Scandinavian scenery is picturesque, the weather and colours in the film correspond with the mood of what is happening in the plot. Adding to emotional relationship between the audience and Alma, throughout the film. The atmospheric landscapes in this film and the cyan tint most recently is reminiscent of Lars von Trier‘s landscapes in Melancholia. When these characters are going through gloom and doom in their lives, it effects all the colour in the film, yet it is saddle enough to be aesthetically very appealing. Female director Jannicke Systad Jacobsen of Turn Me on, Dammit!was primarily a documentary film maker before this film, however she mentioned in an interview that event her documentary films were treated like fictional films. Jacobsen worked with non-actors in this film, to keep some authenticity in documenting teenagers, but the was a story written by her, but based on the novel by Olaug Nilssen. The Alberta Premiere of Turn Me on, Dammit!is playing Friday April 20, 2012 7:30pm at the Globe Cinema tickets can be purchased for $11 online by clicking HERE. Turn Me on, Dammit!has received raving reviews from numerous sources including and not limited to Nylon, Huffington Post and Salon. If you are going to see one film during CUFF, KO‘s PICK is Turn Me on, Dammit!
For all other films playing at CUFF please click HERE for the full schedule.
