Alicia Novella Vasquez

Vivid interruptions of sound and images fragment the psychic landscape of a 38-year-old woman who becomes obsessed with the social media presence of the young woman who broke up her relationship. The latest entry in Chew and Durand’s ongoing examination of the embodied experience of our hybrid online-IRL existence, 38 mines contemporary life’s nuanced exchanges between longing and looking, voyeurism and the desire to be seen.

Set over the course of a single afternoon in a claustrophobic office, “Val” is a sexually charged meditation on intellectual property, creative labor, and the raw power dynamics between two women: boss and employee.

A reclusive stripper returns to her conservative home town to answer a question that tortures her: whether she was abducted by an alien or if there's a darker truth to her past.