Already on MUBI and expanding to other VOD platforms today, Tuesday, June 2:
SEARCHING EVA
Director:
Pia Hellenthal
World Premiere:
Berlin 2019
Select Festivals:
CPH:DOX, IDFA, Hot Docs, Jeonju, Docs Against Gravity, Biografilm, AFI Fest,
About:
A portrait of Eva, a sex worker, model, and writer who explores her sexual autonomy and lives her life online.
Born in Italy and now living in Berlin, Eva Collè is a millennial who appears to have attracted a dedicated following on social media through some combination of a forthright message of self-empowerment and an openness about her body and sexuality. While she inspires many of her followers to be self-assured and reject outside judgement and criticism, others are, of course, critical and even moralizing, as their messages are displayed intermittently throughout the film. As Eva looks for an apartment, takes on low-paying modeling gigs and more lucrative sex work, and hangs out with family, friends, and lovers, filmmaker Pia Hellenthal follows her, giving her strangely reserved protagonist even more attention. While some viewers may concur with Eva’s followers that her life is like an indie movie, others will find it much ado about not much at all, with Eva’s musings growing quickly tiresome.
Note: Since the conclusion of filming, the protagonist, known as Eva and identified as female in the film, has since elected to be called Adam and now goes by male pronouns. Adam does not have an issue with his previous name and female pronouns being used in the context of discussing the film.
what (not) to doc 