Sam’s World

Director’s Statement

Lily Lady is an artist and filmmaker from New York City. SAM’S WORLD centers around a nonbinary sex worker who may or may not be pregnant, and is set over the course of a weekend in New York City.

While highly topical given the current political climate in the United States, I wanted to sideline the sex worker aspect of Sam’s identity and rely on subtext for the pregnancy theme. Sex work has been covered so poorly in mainstream cinema, so there’s barely any explicit mention of the industry or dogmatic overarching messaging in SAM’S WORLD. Further, since I want this to be an inclusive movie for everyone, avoiding any overt political messaging related to what Sam chooses to do if they’re pregnant felt important. It merely presents Sam’s subjectivity and allows the audience to have their own personal response. This film is just as much for my familial roots in rural Indiana as it is for my queer friend group in Bushwick.

I want this film to provide a road map for any aspiring filmmakers without prior experience (like I was before this project) who have no money, no trust fund, and not a lot of connections in the film industry. It’s possible to get a movie made, to say something that feels important and to retain creative control if you truly believe in your project.

Other Perspectives

Filmmaker Michael Smith on Lily Lady’s Sam’s World

Five-time TFF alum Michael Smith, who returns this year with his short Handle With Care, shares his enthusiasm for Sam’s World, the debut feature from New York artist Lily Lady, which plays Saturday Aug. 31 at 6:30 p.m. at Cap City Video Lounge.

Sometimes the most innovative movies – the ones that thrill us most deeply for how they show fresh ways of seeing the world – are made under unlikely circumstances by artists with no prior filmmaking experience. Think of Jean Cocteau’s Blood of a Poet, Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali or Ousmane Sembene’s Black Girl. Sam’s World, the semi-autobiographical cinematic debut from New York-based poet Lily Lady, proudly joins these ranks as the expression of a bold new filmmaking voice – one that is distinctly young, queer, urban and femme. This micro-budget indie represents not only Lady’s first work as a writer/director but, amazingly, as an actor as well (they play the title character with impressive verisimilitude, appearing in nearly every moment of the film).

Festival synopses have made Sam’s World, which depicts a weekend in the life of a 20-something non-binary sex worker, seem more plot and issue-driven than it is. Sex work is never actually depicted and only fleetingly referenced. Conflict between Sam and their more buttoned-down partner Rex (Annie Conolly, superb) is illustrated but never really leads anywhere. Male characters, including Sam’s clients, are virtually absent from the screen. Instead, Lady presents a “hangout movie” consisting mainly of two lengthy and extraordinary dialogue scenes involving Sam and a large cadre of female and gender non-conforming friends: one in a diner and another at the beach. Both scenes go on far longer than they need to for any narrative reasons but to watch them is to feel the exhilaration of watching a filmmaker walk a tightrope for a daringly long time. You can’t quite believe your eyes and ears as they never stumble.

Punctuating these two ultra-realistic sequences, which feel unscripted but are not, are shorter interstitial scenes of pure visual poetry: Matt Harvey’s brilliant cinematography, wielding vibrant color and light in a painterly fashion, combines with an electronic score of great subtlety and beauty (courtesy of Interpol founding member Carlos Dengler) in an expressionistic and dreamlike swirl. The film’s greatest strength lies here, in its provocative juxtaposition of the naturalistic and the hyper-stylized. When the character of a literal angel, played by Lady’s real-life mother, appears in the final scene, I can only think of a sentiment expressed by Jean-Luc Godard, back when he was still a critic, in praise of Jacques Becker: They who jump into the void owe no explanation to those who stand and watch.