Her Name is Lisa

Director: Rachid Kerdouche
Screenwriters: Ron Gott

Institute History

  • 1987 Sundance Film Festival

Description

Her Name is Lisa may turn out to be one of the real cinematic discoveries at this year’s festival. Funded in large part by director Rachid Kerdouche’s earnings from employment as a wine steward in a New York City restaurant, the film is a story of unrequited love. Hargus Beesley (Bill Rice), and older yet acutely naive Vermont farmer, embarks upon a voyage to a strange world, New York City, in pursuit of Lisa (Lisa Wujnovich), a punkish free-spirited country girl from his past who has left him for the big city and the hope of a new life.

Hargus is befriended by a hip native of the city, Julius Marlboro (played to comedic perfection by Rockets Redglare). Together this unlikely pair encounter a variety of strange adventures and people during their relentless quest. Driven by his obsessive dreams of reunion, Hargus is blindly lured into a trap from which there is no escape. This is a grainy, tense and ominous homage to some of the great directors; a sophisticated film that augments a sense of foreboding with some moments of absolute hilarity. It is an original that would become a low-budget cult classic.

— Lawrence Smith

Screening Details

Credits

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