Residency

Director Winnie Cheung in person for a Q+A after the screening!

During a winter-long residency at a possessed NYC art gallery, 10 obsessive female artists succumb to the darkness of their creative fascinations.

The Locker Room, a New York City-based underground art collective, hosted its annual artist residency by granting 10 women artists free rein to pursue their dream projects — including film director Winnie Cheung. The native New Yorker used this opportunity to produce her first feature-length film, a haunting metafictional tale about female artists pushed beyond their limits at a cursed artist residency.

Tapping into the ethos of DIY punk cinema, Winnie called upon The Locker Room gallery to double as the set and the residents as performers. Winnie documented the experience of the month-long residency while simultaneously crafting deadly scenes in secrecy. One by one, each artist disappears until the “final girl” confronts the darkness that haunts the gallery. Of course, the final girl is the director herself. She is her own worst nightmare.

The gallery is real. The artists are real. The residency is real. The passion is real. The story may or may not be real.

“…resurrects the collective spirit that once defined New York City’s artistic ecosystem, yet the zombified venture spirals into derangement as the film shifts into the mode of funhouse horror” – Artforum