mfh

film

= Kafka's Supermarket =




Return to Films section | View movie against dark background | View larger at Vimeo.

Direction, cinematography, editing, sound design and music: Aaron Dylan Kearns
Acting: Allison Maier, Eric Oliver, C. Corey Gupton, Aaron Dylan Kearns, Ben Holst
Screenplay: Aaron Dylan Kearns
Dialogue: Juli Maria Kearns, Steven Cline, Hazel Cline, Aaron Dylan Kearns
Costuming: Steven and Hazel Cline (Mask making), Aaron Dylan Kearns (Design and mask painting)
CG modeling and rendering: Lorelei Nuyts
Marching drums: Colin Agnew
Assistant director, secondary camera: Juli Maria Kearns
Production assistant: Martin Kearns
Special thanks: Adam Brudnicki, Darrel Tangman, Hiroshi Harada
Genre: Avant-garde, experimental, psychological science fiction, surrealist horror
Runtime: 47:49
Budget: $938
Release Date: June 28, 2019
Festivals/screenings: The premiere was at The Polymorph Bodyshop exhibit, September 7, 2019, in Atlanta, Georgia, and was screened at the Polymorph Bodyshop exhibit in Birmingham, Alabama in December, 2019. A physical art installation also included the running of Kafka's Supermarket from September 5-19, 2019 in Atlanta, and December 7-28, 2019 in Birmingham, Alabama. See my Polymorph Bodyshop exhibit documentary page for more information on the exhibit and links.

"An avant-garde disquisition on capitalism and dismemberment of the soul."

Kafka's Supermarket is an avant-garde science fiction dystopian horror film that concerns the issues of a current capitalist America, focusing on the alienation and dehumanization of commercialism. Market obsessions are rendered to their most primal states, flooding a present-day utopia with a nihilistic fixation over death and sexuality, rendering the whole city as a conceptually cannibalistic market of flesh. Market researchers and psychoanalysts watch in indifference as the mental states of their subjects quickly collapse into depressive torpor.

An abstract, vaguely Ballard inspired narrative on the escalation of commercialism and its effects on society as a whole, the film is in-part a response to the BBC documentary Century Of The Self, functioning as an anti-capitalist socialist response to what was originally intended by the author (Adam Curtis) to be a piece of neoliberal rhetoric. The film's narrative takes influence from Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition in its method of exploring psychological landscapes to communicate the overarching narrative. Kafka’s Supermarket took a little over a year to complete, mostly from how the film is wholly detached from the current Atlanta film scene as a fringe production.

Like all my prior films, Kafka's Supermarket was the result of various personal creative fascinations. I conceived the basic concept for Kafka’s Supermarket in late-2017 with my underground comic booklet What Brought Me To This Point?, a macabre deconstruction of society’s reliance on commercialism through the lens of nonsensical violence and a distorted post-capitalist narrator figure.

Kafka's Supermarket is the culmination of a year’s worth of constant work in pursuing the best possible form of communicating the complex atmosphere that I had in mind. To build up the film’s basic groundworks I spent all that time putting all my personal resources and energy into the production. Kafka’s eventual completion is all thanks to the collaborative crew that I formed of friends and family. Credits go to Lorelei Nuyts, Steven and Hazel Cline, mom and dad (Juli and Martin Kearns) and the acting and voice talents who were involved with the production. If it weren’t for these people this project never would’ve made it through. A real special thanks to dad for handling all the set grunt work and building the d.i.y. rear projection screen. He and mom were especially supportive in making the production a reality.

Kafka's Supermarket with subtitles:

Response:

"Your movie is a very fascinating labyrinth world. The multiple layers black dream is very beautiful. Sounds echoing in the heart, fear of the near future, floods of attractive images... It was a fresh encounter." - Hiroshi Harada
"10 Dystopian Sci-Fi Movies that Kafka Would Approve Of : Appropriately enough, this film actually has the author’s name right there in the title. It’s an apt one, too, as this is a searing exploration of the many things that currently afflict our culture and society, leading to the profound malaise that we all feel. Though it’s a relatively short film, there is enough here to remind us of the enormous costs of commercialism, not just on society as a whole, but also on the individual psyche." Thomas West at Screenrant

Trailers for the film:



Kafka's Supermarket poster:

Kafka's Supermarket poster
Download poster

Connect