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Introducing MANIA
MANIA is the new feature film from the
multi-award-winning team behind LITTLE JOHNNY JEWEL and DREAM TIME. A tense, dark psychological
thriller set in New York City and rural Iowa.
Writer/director Jude Rawlins made MANIA because he wanted to explore the symbiotic relationship between narcissism and codependency
Dandy's mother Nora is an overt narcissist. She is grandiose and extroverted, confident and assertive. Her whole life is a performance. She consistently thinks of herself as the most intelligent person in the room. She is incapable of love but uses tough love as her excuse for being uncooperative, selfish, and overbearing. Her exaggerated self-image and high self-esteem actually means that she frequently underestimates other people.
By contrast, Dandy's husband Harris is a covert narcissist. He hides his vicious toxicity behind a veneer of fake humility, attempting to control the narrative through a complex combination of lies and gaslighting. He can fake empathy when it suits him, but truly he has none. He's charming when he needs to be, but he is entirely stimulated by playing games with other people. His toxic sense of superiority is never far from the surface.
Dandy herself is an "exploding doormat" codependent stuck between them. Her sister Ariel has taken her own life, her gentle but also codependent spirit having been crushed by the narcissists in her life. Their father and Nora's husband Norris is a classic "willing victim" codependent, who draws his own self-esteem from being useful to others. He was thus easily enslaved to the likes of Nora.
Dandy is vulnerable and needy, but buried beneath her grief there is an angry and rebellious side to her nature. As the narcissists focus only on exteriors and appearances, they are dangerously unaware of the ticking emotional bomb that Dandy carries within her.
Such extraordinarily complex characters required extraordinarily talented actors to bring them to the screen. Avery Knudson's performance as Dandy is a proverbial hurricane the likes of which is rarely seen in cinema today. As her antagonists Harris and Nora, Rob Merritt and Patricia O'Neil also deliver unforgettable performances that play with fire and fizz with intensity.
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STORY
Whilst mourning the
recent suicide of her sister, Dandy Fleming becomes infatuated with the psychiatrist Harris
Bolger, who promises her a peaceful new life far away from New York and her
overbearing mother Nora. But once they relocate to rural Iowa it soon becomes apparent that all is not what it seems in their relationship.
TRIVIA
The artworks visible in Nora's apartment include a painting by German artist Miriam
Vlaming, whose paintings also appeared in Jude Rawlins' first feature film
Albion Rising in 2009, as well as a reproduction of Jude's own poster for his first band
Angelhead, which he designed in 1987 and which was influenced by the work of British artist Linder Sterling, who is mentioned by name in one scene.
The scene where Dandy has a panic attack in the subway was shot in 14th Street station in Manhattan and is the only scene in any of Jude Rawlins' films to utilize a
steadicam. The camera was operated by Rose Gaffney who studied under Garrett Brown, the inventor of the
steadicam, famous for his work with Stanley Kubrick.
Mania was the first "conventional" script that Jude Rawlins ever wrote, and was originally set in London and Cornwall in the southwest of England. The part of Nora was written for legendary actress Dame Janet
Suzman, but after disagreements with various UK funding institutions, and the logistical problems of getting permits to film in London, Rawlins' shelved the project in 2014. After working with Avery Knudson and Rob Merritt on his film
Little Johnny Jewel, he decided to transfer the story to New York and Iowa.
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MANIA
Written and directed by
Jude Rawlins
Produced by Bella Ward and
Nancy Jeanne Adams
for Bella Luna Productions LLC
Based on an original story
by Jude Rawlins and Laura Deeley
Filmed on location in New
York City and Iowa, USA
For more information
contact:
admin@bellalunaproductions.com
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