Me and My Victim – Fantasia 2024
July 18 to August 4, 2024
Content Advisory: Rape and Sexual Assault, Sexual Harassment, Substance abuse or alcoholism, Graphic sexuality or pornography
FILM FESTIVAL
Fantasia 2024
Fantasia Film Festival
PROGRAMME
Underground
AWARDS
AQCC Best Film
AQCC Competition
A Montreal video artist and New York poet reflect on their complicated relationship in Me and My Victim. Maurane is a Montreal-based multimedia artist specializing in video art and Billy Pedlow is a poet living in New York. The two met while Maurane was on a trip to New York and their story is told through recollections, poems, and video art.
Me and My Victim Synopsis
Me and My Victim is a highly experimental hybrid documentary co-directed by the subjects Maurane and Billy Pedlow on an ultra-low budget of $1000 USD, with the film even shamelessly flashing a PayPal QR code at one point to drive home the lack of funds. The project began as a poetry book Billy Pedlow was going to write called “My Friend Maurane,” and it evolved into this multimedia project. The two disagree with some aspects of their story, particularly whether Billy raped Maurane.
My Thoughts on Me and My Victim
At one point filmmaker and subject Maurane jokes that she was going to name this project Me and My Rapist, which turns out to be less of a joke when it is revealed that she and Billy Pedlow had a non-consensual drunken sexual encounter that Maurane considers rape, but Billy wasn’t willing to admit it as such, differentiating a bruise from a wound. All this resulted in me wondering what the point of Me and My Victim was. Is this film truly a video art piece reflecting on whether a sexual assault can be considered a sexual assault, because if that’s the case, then shame on these two for trivializing something like rape. Combine that with sexually explicit poems about anal sex and Me and My Victim is a poor excuse of a film that I wish I could unwatch.
Trailer for Me and My Victim – Fantasia 2024
