Feast
NL, 2021, DCP, 84 min.

In Feast, perpetrators, victims and their onlookers get entangled in a dramatic reconstruction of the Groningen HIV case, the story of three men who drugged other men during a series of sex parties and then injected them with their own HIV-infected blood.

The source text of the film is Plato's SYMPOSIUM, which depicts a banquet attended by a group of notable men. During this gathering, seven of the attendees engage in a playful contest in which they try to find the most convincing definition of Eros, or truth, or beauty, or love.

Feast is the result of the collision of these two narratives, which initially appear to be each others antitheses, culminating in a story about power and submission, the reversibility of the truth and the desire to come home. The film is told in seven sequences, recorded by seven different directors of photography, and in which documentary and fiction strategies merge unnoticed and clash dramatically.

Feast premiered at International Film Festival Rotterdam in the Tiger competition and is currently touring the festival circuit. Theatrical screenings are slated for 2022 and a deal with my favourite VOD service is in the making. See below for current and past screening dates.

Original film poster designed by Andreia Costa