Friends of Metrograph India Donaldson, Emily Schubert, and Sam Huber each share a film they love, streaming on demand on the Metrograph At Home platform.
India Donaldson selects
2 Friends
2 Friends, dir. Jane Campion, 1986
I love scenes of mothers and daughters shopping together, and Campion’s 2 Friends has a perfect one. The whole film is brimming with the rich and specific details of friendships between teenage girls and might make you want to call your best friend from high school. Brianne… pick up your phone!
India Donaldson is a filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Her film Good One will be released by Metrograph Pictures on August 9. Her short films Hannahs and If Found are now available to stream on Metrograph At Home.
EMILY SCHUBERT
Daughters of Darkness
Daughters of Darkness, dir. Harry Kümel, 1971
Glossy red lips and shiny red nails conjure the primordial hunt. I imagine someone draped over the carcass of an animal, their fingertips ripping flesh, their mouth dripping blood. Everything wet and red is primal, for reasons to do with more than just violence. Menstruation, for example, or simply a wet pussy. It seems Kümel, the director of Daughters of Darkness, agrees with me. The film’s original title in French and Belgian can be translated to “The Red Lips.” My favorite scene is when Delphine Seyrig’s vampiric Countess Elizabeth Báthory slips the white glove off a young woman’s left hand and kisses it, leaving an imprint of red lips-a stylish way for a predator to mark her prey.
Emily Schubert works in film, fine art, and music in New York City. Her book Beauty of the Beast: A Makeup Manual is out this year with A24, and available to purchase now from Metrograph Editions.
SAM HUBER selects
The Queen
The Queen, dir. Frank Simon, 1968
The opening montage of The Queen, Simon’s documentary portrait of a New York City drag pageant, teases shimmering jewelry, chorus-line high kicks, and gowns gowns gowns. When the curtain finally rises 40 minutes later, we get them, but my favorite moments are in the film’s first half. These are beautiful, funny, intimate scenes of queer people supporting and upstaging each other: queens out of drag killing time in their hotel rooms, singing, primping, camping, vamping, talking about their families and the draft, hogging the camera or dodging it. Breaking the law. Being stars.
Sam Huber is a senior editor at The Yale Review and is writing a book about Kate Millett.