Institute History
Description
After a night of partying, high-school sophomore Mandy discovers that a series of cell-phone videos of her—half-dressed and semiconscious—have gone viral. Struggling to piece together what happened, reeling at how quickly the normalcy of her life has been upended, unsure about her friends’ attempts to usher her back into their normal social routine, and uneasy about her parents’ inclination to take action on her behalf, Mandy has to navigate a landscape littered with others’ good intentions and find a way to heal from a wound she can’t identify.
In her debut feature, writer/director Pippa Bianco embeds Mandy’s confusion and isolation into the texture of the film itself, while also imbuing the film with a deft understanding of how contemporary teenagers interact and communicate in the face of disruption. Newcomer Rhianne Barreto delivers a stunningly restrained performance that foregrounds Mandy’s uncertainty, using her expressive, searching eyes to show us how desperately Mandy needs answers even as she outwardly attempts to mask her pain.