Ikonophile Z – trydersmith.org

Production

Off-screen

*l to r: sarina argento, jay eckardt, garance arditti, sherry perkov, antonio rossi, mitzi akaha, richard ledes, jb bruno, lanier westmoreland, yohance bailey, tim perdoch, jesse dickersin*

Written and Directed by Richard C. Ledes

2021
Feature film

Produced by Richard Ledes, Garance Arditti, JB Bruno, Ged Dickersin

Director of Photography: Antonio Rossi
1st Assistant Camera: Jay Eckardt
Sound: Tim Perdoch
Costumes: Sofija Mesicek
Production Supervisor: JB Bruno
Production Manager: Garance Arditti
1st AD: Yohance Bailey, Sabrina Mandell
Script Supervisor: Jesse Dickersin
PA: Maddison Eddins, Sherry Perkov, Lanier Westmoreland
Health Supervisor: Sarina Argento

Casting by Billy Hopkins, Ashley Ingram

With: Betsy Aidem, Mitzi Akaha, Eric Moreland, T. Ryder Smith

Shot on location in NYC and Peekskill, NY

Synopsis

Can you change the world by just thinking?

Self-styled “revolutionary” Chris (T. Ryder Smith) is besotted with critical theory and can’t stop talking about it. He is about to self-publish a book entitled “On Distraction”, and is wrestling with “branding” himself, as per the advice of Laura, (Mitzi Akaha), a photographer with a special interest in ikons and a sideline baking pot brownies. In NYC over the course of several weeks, as Covid restrictions ease, Laura, Chris and his long-time on-and-off girlfriend, sociology professor Vanessa, (Betsy Aidem), meet virtually and in person to debate a vast range of thinkers and issues including identity politics, universality, praxis, the lumpenproletariat, escape from capitalism, the Haitian revolution, #MeToo, BLM, Guy Debord, Bernard Steigler, Achille Mbembe, the plays of Sophocles, the Twilight Zone, art-house cinema and fully-automated communism. The film culminates in a trip Chris and Laura take upstate where their hotel balcony overlooks Indian Point nuclear power plant. Will Chris stop talking long enough to make either relationship work? Does everything have to change for anything to change? And more importantly, have the birds of Central Park been replaced by cleverly-designed machines? A combination of Preston Sturges, Jean-Pierre Gorin and Eric Rohmer, writer-director Richard Ledes describes the film as “a light romantic comedy about the extinction of all life on Earth”.