The Poet and the Professor

A film by Ariel Kavoussi

A dark comedic about Ariel, an insecure writer tortured by her own desires who must overcome a proclivity for dysfunctional affairs to find a healthier, more sustainable relationship.

Ariel can’t seem to stop seeing “The Poet,” an older, volatile cinematographer who pursues his ‘art’ while taking full advantage of his rich girlfriend’s beautiful NYC apartment.

Ariel also can’t stop herself from loving her own professor, a depressed, married, struggling adjunct obsessed with postmodernism and addicted to pills.


Executive Producer
Ariel Kavoussi, Clifford McCurdy, Devoe Yates

Production Funded by
Kickstarter Backers

Producer
Valerie Steinberg

Director of Photography
Charlotte Hornsby

Associate Producer / Assistant Director
Erica Rose

Production Designer
Emma Zbiral-Teller

Art Director
Eli Kleinsmith

Production Coordinator
Chuka Agbaraji

Starring
Kevin Corrigan, Bob Byington, Ariel Kavoussi

Stylist
Ellen Robin Rosenberg

Production Sound
Jarrett DePasquale

Boom Operator
Jungjoo Park

Editors
Justin Kavoussi, Ariel Kavoussi

Additional Editor
Zach Clark

Color Correction
Jenny Montgomery

Poster Illustration
Julie Lequin


Director Statement

The title of my film is a play off of Jean Eustache’s 1973 film THE MOTHER AND THE WHORE, a movie that explores the relationships between three characters in a love triangle. While significantly inspired by Eustache and numerous other filmmakers of the French New Wave, I am likewise bored by their frequently reductive depiction of women. My film is radical, only in that I reverse these gender stereotypes – my “whore” is a chubby cinematographer, and my “mother” is my mentor.

These two male characters personify archetypes of masculinity, but they also represent the yin/yang of what it means to be human. The Professor is a creature of language. He surrounds himself with books and it is his profession to think. The Poet, on the other hand, is defined through his physicality. These men represent two sides of a person that Ariel thinks she needs to be with in order to be whole. However, by the end of the film, Ariel learns she is a complete being on her own—she is an artist, a thinker, and her own person.


Mike Ambs

I love to film things, tell stories, and read on the subway. I'm pretty sure blue whales are my power animal. 

http://mikeambs.com
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