Canadian Premiere
Two sexy Interpol agents: No St. Aubergine (Esther Garrel, Call Me By Your Name) and Chase National (Alex Zhang Hungtai, formerly of Vancouver’s Dirty Beaches) travel to Mexico to investigate a conspiracy involving deadly, poisonous gas-emitting coral. Dream Team is a bizarro homage to 90s basic cable television; a bleary-eyed binge-watch of a six-episode season that unfolds like a horny, fever dream complete with trippy, ever-changing title sequences and educational passages about the nature of coral.
Directors Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn have developed their brand of lo-fi, art house camp since the mid-aughts. They return here with another absurdist experiment in genre filmmaking; a neon-soaked VHS aesthetic that is equal parts comforting and uncanny. Not your average movie, Dream Team is a disorienting, post-modern, eco-espionage sitcom broadcast from another world; X-Files meets The Pink Opaque by way of Tim and Eric.
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Esther Garrel, Alex Zhang Hungtai, Isabelle Barbier, Fariha Roisin, Minh T Mia, John Fell Ryan
USA
2024
English
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Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Blake Horn, Jane Schoenbrun, Pierce Varous, Sarah Winshall
Producer
Lev Kalman
Screenwriter
Lev Kalman, Whitney Horn
Cinematography
Whitney Horn
Editor
Lev Kalman, Whitney Horn
Production Design
Whitney Horn
Original Music
John Atkinson
Lev Kalman
Whitney Horn
Lev Kalman (b. 1982) and Whitney Horn (b. 1982) have been making films together since 2003. Their distinctive style blends lo-fi 16mm photography, dreamy electronic music, philosophical musings, and steady bursts of absurdist humor. Their films Blondes in the Jungle (2009), L for Leisure (2014), and Two Plains & a Fancy (2018) have played at international festivals including Rotterdam, BFI London, and BAMCinemaFest. Kalman is based in San Diego and Horn in San Francsico.
Filmography: Blondes in the Jungle (2009); L for Leisure (2014); Two Plains & a Fancy (2018)
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