At the moment I am working on
“My American Dream”.
Protagonist Miss T’s American Dream is an existential search played out along the mythical roadside Americana of amongst others Route 66. Dinosaurs from the heyday of American car culture are the faded, funny and forlorn Pop architecture that sprang up all over the US in the optimistic 1940’s and 50’s. Miss T uses these loopy landmarks as stage sets for her surrealist antics and in so doing, plays with and parodies American icons and myths. Each scene is a tableau blending the sublime and the ridiculous as Miss T and her cast of colorful characters create a variety show of musical numbers, absurd sketches and dreamlike fantasies.
My American Dream is an interactive series of approx 12 short films (3-5 min.) that form a surrealistic road movie in which the viewer gets to choose their own destinations.
Miss T is the alterego of dutch visual artist Sietske Tjallingii. Following her graduation from the Rietveld Academie she founded her company Take T Productions and made several videoinstallations and started developing Miss T. After the initial research period for the M.A.D. project, Sietske realised she wanted to focus on the artistic part of this project. In 2007 through Peter van Hoof, short film programmer IFFR she was introduced to producer Sasha Dees and her company SDPM to collaborate with her on M.A.D. Based on the research they wrote the artistic and bizness plan and raised the funds together (’08/’09) and are now in full production (’10/’11). The project is planned to be presented through an online component as well as in galleries and filmfestivals internationally.
Concept/director: Sietske Tjallingii
Producer: Sasha Dees
DP: Micha Douwes (PA), Khamisi Norwood jr. (CA, AZ, IN, IL, MO), Ben Geraerts (TN, VI, SC), Diana Spaghetto Manfredi (NV)
Editor: Giusy Naitana
My American Dream is a SDPM & Take T Production funded in part by the Foundation for the Visual Arts (Fonds BKVB), Dutch Filmfund (Filmfonds) and Amsterdam Fund for the Arts (AFK).
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