SPIDER + FLY (2014)

/Director/Camera: Emily Esperanza
Cast: Michael Patrick Russell, Cha'Nequa Stevens, Joslyn-Marie Alvarado, Paul Cary, Harriet Poznansky, Tommy Psaltakis Genre: Featurette, Experiemental

Runtime: 47 minutes, VHS

SPIDER + FLY is a no-budget experimental featurette which blends existentialist idealism and stark poetic romanticism with lo-fi aesthetics, offbeat pacing, nonlinear narrative, and gritty in-camera sound. The result is an unpolished portrait of a dissolute outsider's odyssey through an urban wasteland of archetype and misogyny, or, the “Great White Male Existential Crisis”.

SPIDER + FLY features a soundtrack by Jandek, and Santa Fe-based duo, Evarusnik.

In 2016-2017, the 47-minute featurette toured in a program titled, Wretched Woman/Pig or Poet, consisting of a VHS screening of SPIDER + FLY and videos from Esperanza’s ‘Wretched Woman’ series. The program toured nationally and screened at venues like The Spectacle Theatre in Brooklyn, Northwest Film Forum in Seattle, Echo Park Film Center in Los Angeles, and Chicago Filmmakers in Chicago.