SILVER BULLETS
Silver Bullets
Joe Swanberg, 2011
Catalog No.: FTF-033
Length: 70 minutes
Ethan (Joe Swanberg) is a director who aims to make meaningful art films, but is struggling with a creative slump and disengagement with his work. His girlfriend Claire (Kate Lyn Sheil), is an actress whose career is beginning to take off. She has accepted the lead part in a werewolf movie being directed by talented young horror filmmaker Ben (Ti West). Ethan's depression leads to jealousy over both Claire’s success and her increasingly close relationship with Ben. Ethan decides to retaliate against Claire by casting her best friend Charlie (Amy Seimetz) in a romantic role opposite himself in his new film. As pettiness and jealousy spiral out of control within their relationship, Claire begins to slip into a surreal fantasy world that more closely mirrors her role in the werewolf film than that of her real life. Largely improvised Silver Bullets draws inspiration from Chekhov ‘s The Seagull and Roman Polanski’s Bitter Moon, while using David Foster Wallace as a reference point to explores fame, depression and suicide.
Directed by Joe Swanberg
Produced by Amy Seimetz
Cinematography by Joe Swanberg
Original Score by The Mighty Orange Trio
Starring: Kate Lyn Sheil, Ti West, Amy Seimetz, Joe Swanberg, Jane Adams and Larry Fessenden
Festivals: Berlin, SXSW and Maryland Film Festival
PURCHASE
WATCH THE FILM
PRESS
"Swanberg's most urgent and meaningful film."
-Steve Dollar, The Wall Street Journal
"The most affecting “horror” movie I’ve seen in a while, as Swanberg ignores tired supernatural scare-flick trappings and locates terror."
-Mark Holcolm, The Village Voice
"Bringing together the anguish of love and the demands of art, Swanberg seems to tear the skin off the filmmaking process to expose deep wounds."
-Richard Brody, The New Yorker
An uncommonly sympathetic, if uncompromising, look at the place of an actor in a world of would-be auteurs."
-Alison Willmore, A.V. Club