“It felt like a film made for me – for my sense of humour and my perspective of sex.” As hotly anticipated new series The Bisexual comes to UK screens, its creator reflects on 2001’s Fat Girl
“I first discovered Catherine Breillat’s film Fat Girl (2001) in undergrad, when I overheard my teacher telling someone she’d just seen this horrible film that had really disturbed and upset her. I was really curious so I watched it one night, expecting to fall asleep after one scene, but I was completely sucked in. The film felt genius to me on many different levels. First, the realism of it – it was so slice of life, so what it was to be a young teen girl with a hot sister. Then the absurdity of it – the comedy. Then, by the end, it felt like a fucked up fairytale; it had become a metaphor. It’s hard to articulate, because the film dances through several different genres and tones, and that’s what I love about it – you have to keep up and dance with it. It felt like a film made for me – for my sense of humour and my perspective of sex.”
For the Iranian-American film-maker Desiree Akhavan, sexual interactions are a source of fascination that she explores with unflinching candour. Her debut feature, Appropriate Behaviour (2014), follows a twenty-something, bisexual New Yorker – played by, and loosely based on, Akhavan – as she navigates her way through a painful break-up and one of the funniest threesomes in film history. Akhavan’s current offering, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, tells the story of a lesbian teen sent to a gay-conversion camp to ‘cure’ her same-sex tendencies. Both its titular protagonist (played by Chloë Grace Moretz) and her sexual experiences are depicted with refreshing authenticity. This year has been a busy one for the director: her new TV show, The Bisexual, airs on Channel 4 this autumn.
Hair: Kiyoko Odo at Bryant Artists. Make-up: Jenny Coombs at Streeters London using MAC. Photographic assistant: Phil Hewitt. Styling assistants: Rebecca Perlmutar, Camila Paiva and Georgina Craig. Hair assistant: Tomoaki Usui. Make-up assistant: Kimie Yasiro
This story originally featured in the Autumn/Winter 2018 issue of AnOther Magazine, which is on sale internationally now.
The Bisexual will screen on Channel 4 on October 10, 2018.
