L.A. Tea Time
Modern pilgrimage in search of an author
L.A. Tea Time is an unusual travelogue which is at times meditative and at times haunted, recounting the adventures of Sophie and Isabelle with humor and a soft touch of magic. The writer and director, Sophie Bédard Marcotte, creates a biographical account of her quest for a meeting with the filmmaker Miranda July (Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005), The Future (2011)). The resulting piece is about the often grueling and thankless process of independent and low-budget film creation and a personal self-discovery that is modest yet beautiful. The films seems like a genuine homage to the genius Chantal Akerman who is oddly cast in the film as a divine creature that talks from heaven directly to Sophie. In a way, this documentary bears resemblances with the cinema of the Belgian director: the still camera portraying the daily life of the author, a nearly inexistent plot and a pilgrimage to find meaning in an empty modern world. The strongest aspect of the film is that it incorporates all these resemblances with a sophisticated and extraordinary sense of humor.
Daniel Sánchez López
About the Director
Sophie’s intimistic approach allows plenty of room for detours and adventure, avoiding the standards of a more didactic and controlled cinema. She directed a first fiction entitled Winter Claire in 2017, which was presented at Festival du Nouveau Cinema, the NYC Independent Film Festival and the Cineteca Nacional in Mexico. Her latest project, L.A. Tea Time, premiered at Visions du Réel in the Spring of 2019.
