‘First Time Female Director’ Review: Chelsea Peretti’s Chaotic Feature Film Debut Is As Hilarious As It Is Bleak – Tribeca Festival
17.06.2023 - 23:15
/ deadline.com
Written and directed by Chelsea Peretti, First Time Female Filmmaker lives in the self-deprecating world of meta storytelling. Debuting at the Tribeca Festival in Spotlight Narrative, Peretti put so much of herself into this narrative, it could work as a documentary. It’s also such a comically honest portrayal of what women must endure if they want to get ahead in any career, let alone the theater business. Having to constantly prove to yourself and others that you are capable is so exhausting, but can also be rewarding if you are set up for success. Many are often left to fend for themselves, and the film shows one way of how that can happen.
In addition to Peretti, First Time Female Filmmaker boast a hefty cast, including Chelsea Peretti, Amy Poehler, Andy Richter, Benito Skinner, Blake Anderson, Megan Stalter, Megan Mullally, Jak Knight, and Xosha Roquemore, Kate Berlant, and many more.
Sam (Peretti) is taking over for the director at the Regis Theater in Glendale, Calif., thanks to Sheldon (Richter), who works at the theater. She’s a playwright, so she should be able to handle it, right? The old director was ousted because of being a sexual predator. Sam quickly discovers that being a director may be a lot more challenging than she originally thought. But her dream is to stage her dream production, a rural drama set in the South. Sam comes up against a bunch of issues that sets the production on a course of destruction–mainly because of the cast.
The cast consists of Rudy (Skinner), Davina (Stalter), Marjory (Mullally), Simon (Knight), Kara (Berlant), and Corden (Anderson) who don’t like Sam because they are so used to another man directing them they don’t know how to adapt. Sam is struggling to gain their