News & Notes — Burlington Film Society screens The Fits
Newcomer Royalty Hightower is riveting in Anna Rose Holmer’s debut feature The Fits. Whether she’s pushing herself to physical extremes while training as a boxer or struggling to learn choreography to audition for the dance team or standing still in watchful silence, Hightower commands the screen. Her thoughtful, intense performance is essential to the film’s mesmerizing effect.
The Fits tells the story of young tomboy Toni (Hightower), an athlete who develops a fascination with the dance team that practices in the same gym. She eventually decides to join the dancers, and the film follows her path into this new subculture and the emotional challenges that ensue. When strange, spastic ‘fits’ start to befall some of the girls, panic and confusion set in, exacerbating the already high tensions.
Director Anna Rose Holmer devised The Fits as “a dance film, considering the movements of the actors and camera to be choreography in each scene. From stand battles to obsessive workouts, from the way Toni carries her body down the hallway to the freedom in Beezy’s play, we approached storytelling from the physical performance first. Through these movements, we explored our thematic questions:
What are the indications of belonging to a group and how do those markers develop? How do girls use their bodies as a mode of communication?
What is the self?
Is the body separate from the self?
Is identity a performance?
How does one differentiate between self and other?
Is it possible to truly betray one’s self?”
To accomplish this, Holmer and her team enlisted the participation of the Q-Kidz Dance Team, a 30 year old troupe from the West End of Cincinnati. Originally formed by Marquicia Jones-Woods (Ms. Quicy to the girls) in response to the violence and harsh living conditions of the surrounding housing projects, Q-Kidz offers more than just an outlet for young girls in the area to be creative and physical in a safe space – it also works to “instill values about the importance of a good education, living drug free and stopping the violence in their community.” Joined by her adult twin daughters, choreographers Mariah and Chariah Jones, Ms. Quicy has provided countless girls with much needed support and respect.
In researching various dance forms for the film, Holmer became fascinated with drill and stand-battles, and realized they were the perfect thematic match for the story. In the film’s press notes she writes, “In stand battle, the captain of the team picks a routine on her own and dances the first few steps. The team immediately mimics her and they dance in unison. This call and response through movement spoke to the greater themes of the film because the tension between individuality and conformity is present in the dance form itself. Also, drill has a narrative element to it, often incorporating mundane movements: punches, hair styling, etc. into the choreography. I fell in love with drill and the Q-Kidz simultaneously. We never considered any other team.”
Holmer and her collaborators developed and produced The Fits through the Venice Biennale Cinema College Program. With a micro-budget of roughly $160,000 and an extremely limited timeline and shooting schedule, the filmmakers created a captivating exercise in rhythm and movement, a poignant character portrait, and a beguiling, stirring coming-of-age story. The film has garnered awards in a number of festivals and has received great critical praise. We are very excited to present the Vermont premiere of the film – ahead of its nationwide release – in Burlington this Thursday (5/26), 7:00pm at the Main Street Landing Film House. The Fits is being presented in partnership with MSL and Swan Dojo dance studio.
-Seth Jarvis, 5/23/16
