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.
