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The Assistant

Panorama 2020
© Forensic Films
Another day at the office. Jane, the new assistant to a powerful media mogul, is the first to arrive and, by the end of the film, will be the last to leave. She does her job, endures her colleagues’ constant hostility and applies herself to her growing pile of tasks with painstaking precision: printing out schedules, arranging travel, ordering lunch and tidying up her boss’s office. Without him ever once putting in an appearance in front of the camera, his existence is nonetheless all-pervasive – for both Jane and the audience. We hear him on the other end of the phone reprimanding Jane; we also witness the array of attractive young women who are paying a visit to the company at his behest. Jane’s suspicions and discomfort spin out of control as it becomes clear that she is part of an abusive system.
Assembled with visual rigour and narrative quietude, Kitty Green’s gripping fictional debut homes in on oppressive practices in a workplace and depicts the abuse taking place behind closed doors from the perspective of those who are its willing or unwilling enablers. By the end, we may not have seen much, but we understand everything.
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by Kitty Green
with Julia Garner, Matthew Macfadyen, Makenzie Leigh, Kristine Froseth, Jon Orsini, Noah Robbins, Alexander Chaplin, Jay O. Sanders, Juliana Canfield, Dagmara Dominczyk USA 2019 English 87’ Colour

With

  • Julia Garner (Jane)
  • Matthew Macfadyen (Wilcock)
  • Makenzie Leigh (Ruby)
  • Kristine Froseth (Sienna)
  • Jon Orsini (Male Assistant)
  • Noah Robbins (Male Assistant)
  • Alexander Chaplin (Max)
  • Jay O. Sanders (Boss, Voice)
  • Juliana Canfield (Sasha)
  • Dagmara Dominczyk (Ellen)

Crew

Written and Directed by Kitty Green
Cinematography Michael Latham
Editing Kitty Green, Blair McClendon
Music Tamar-kali
Sound Design Leslie Shatz
Production Design Fletcher Chancey
Costumes Rachel Dainer-Best
Make-Up Regina De Lemos
Assistant Director Annalise Lockhart
Casting Avy Kaufman
Production Manager Max Tromba
Producers Kitty Green, Scott Macaulay, James Schamus, P. Jennifer Dana, Ross Jacobson
Co-Producers James Price, Rita Walsh

World sales

Protagonist Pictures

http://protagonistpictures.com/ http://protagonistpictures.com/

Produced by

Forensic Films

Symbolic Exchange

3311 Productions

https://www.3311productions.com/ https://www.3311productions.com/

Photos

Press Conference

Kitty Green

© Ty Johnson

Born in Melbourne, Australia in 1984, the director, writer, producer and co-editor studied film and television at the Victorian College of the Arts. Her documentary Ukraine Is Not a Brothel, about the activities of the feminist movement Femen, premiered at the Venice Film Festival, screened at over 50 festivals worldwide and won the AACTA Award for Best Feature Length Documentary. The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul won the Short Film Jury Prize for Non-Fiction at Sundance and screened in the 2015 Berlinale Generation while Casting JonBenet featured in the 2017 Berlinale Panorama.

Filmography

2013 Ukraine Is Not A Brothel; documentary · Ukraine Is Not A Brothel 2015 The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul; short film, Generation · The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul; IFB Generation 2017 Casting JonBenet · Casting JonBenet; documentary, Panorama 2019 The Assistant; Panorama

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2020