By Brenda Zofrea – GRAND Magazine film reviewer
Deborah Kampmeier, the award-winning independent film writer, and director of SPLit (her latest film which made its worldwide premiere at the 2016 Sarasota Film Festival) entices, teases and stirs an audience even before you’ve entered the theater.
This is Kampmeier’s third film to be shown at the Sarasota Film Festival. According to Kampmeier, “This is one of my favorite festivals because I feel that the Sarasota Film Festival treats filmmakers really well and the audience really appreciates independent films.”
The red carpet for SPLit included snake-draped actors, a traveling minstrel, and women brave enough to welcome the audience wearing nothing but a partial face mask and some henna.
I was honored to interview a writer and director with such passion and commitment to create films that challenge you to watch what you would rather not see, hear what we would prefer to silence and feel the universal pain unique to living female in this world.
Through her films, Kampmeier speaks for women and girls and their struggle to live free from the physical, emotional and sexual constraints that bind and traumatize. The narrative of SPLit will
In her own words, Kampmeier says,”SPLit” tells the story of Inanna (Amy Ferguson), a young actress working as a stripper who becomes obsessed with a mask maker (Morgan Spector). She sacrifices parts of herself, piece by piece, in order to win his love. The film depicts a mythic journey that blurs theater performance, dreams and real life as Inanna connects with other women’s experiences of trauma and repressed sexuality. This provocative and powerful confrontation frees Inanna as she is able to claim her rage and rise to her own independence.”
This film with stay with you long after you leave the theater.
Brenda Zofrea is a film reviewer for GRAND Magazine, educator & founder of Let’s B Safe, a unique approach to help protect children from sexual abuse, while also helping to improve basic literacy skills using research-based principles.