This year’s Sundance Film Festival added a “Midnight Shorts” lineup for all you genre junkies out there. And boy have they delivered. Among them is the provocatively titled film, Fuckkkyouuu. Its director is New Mexico native Eddie Alcazar, best known for directing Tapia, a documentary on the Mexican-American boxer Johnny Tapia which aired on HBO in 2014.
Influenced by 1930s horror films and Japanese flicks, the black and white short is part music video, part experimental film. Shot in 16mm reversal (“so that textured medium brings an aged aesthetic”) the short is based on an unreleased track by electronic artist Flying Lotus. Lacking any dialogue, Fuckkkyouuu shows Alcazar’s fascination with the human body—some scenes are decidedly NSFW— and the result is a disorienting dream-like spell that soon becomes a nightmare when, as the description tells us “time folds onto itself.”
Prior to the short’s premiere at Sundance, Alcazar talked to Remezcla about coming up with this dizzying horror short and his upcoming film Johnny on the Albuquerque boxer.
Fuckkkyouuu screened as part of the Midnight Shorts Program at the Sundance Film Festival.
On The Film’s Eerie Experience
This film revolves around a particular intimate experience that creates fractured souls. Like a drug. You first have such a beautiful experience, and then you want to kill yourself when you come down. The decisions of the character or characters in this film are primarily motivated by that disoriented feeling and struggle for understanding.
On His Collaboration With Flying Lotus
[Fuckkkyouuu] was the name of the original unreleased Flying Lotus track. From that name came various connections throughout the film, so we decided to keep it. So first came the unreleased track he played for me, then immediately came these abstract images of torture. Once we finished our first shoot we talked a lot and rounded out the idea of an actual time traveling narrative. From that point he finished scoring the film.
On His Upcoming Johnny Tapia Film
The plan was always to do the narrative film first. The documentary came about from research as I was writing the script, and then Johnny passed away so I felt it was necessary to compile all my footage and his last interviews into a film that told his story from birth to death and uphold his legacy. I am from Albuquerque, NM – same place where Johnny was born – and grew up watching him fight. He was the biggest sports figure to come out of Albuquerque. So I naturally gravitated towards him in my hopes to explore a culture I also know very well, and relate that to what cultivated Johnny as a human being.