Latest news with #SundanceFilmFestival
Sydney Morning Herald
4 minutes ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
A bad thing happened to Eva Victor. What followed was very good indeed
At the dark centre of Agnes' life in Sorry, Baby is The Bad Thing. It is never named, but it involves her academic supervisor, an essay to be discussed after hours, a day that turns into evening. We see the curtains being pulled shut behind the windows of a pleasantly bohemian house – his house – with her inside it, but we don't get past the doorstep. What happens inside remains behind that closed door. Afterwards, we move forward with Agnes – by days, months, years – during which she is promoted to a junior professorship, keeps her panic attacks mostly private, gets a cat, is sometimes very funny, and hurts all the time. Eva Victor's muted, witty debut film was an immediate standout at this year's Sundance Film Festival, where it was picked up by the arthouse disruptor A24 for an estimated $US8million, and where Victor won the prestigious Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. Victor, hitherto an actor best known for playing a supporting role in Billions, plays Agnes as well as directing. Their presence on screen underlines the personal urgency of the story. How much is autobiographical remains part of the blurry hinterland of the creative process. Victor has never worked in academia, certainly, but has still captured with sharp accuracy the bitter competition for tenure and a corner office. What feels most emotionally immediate, however, with the full force of personal testimony, is whatever happened behind that closed door. Eva Victor is 31, was born in Paris, grew up in San Francisco and went to a French-language school, where they had a classic adolescent engagement with existentialism. 'I remember reading Camus' The Stranger and thinking, 'Yeah, everything sucks',' they told Variety. 'And I just felt seen.' There was a gradual queer coming-out during university and Victor now identifies as non-binary, using both 'she' and 'they' pronouns. 'Non-binary for me has always been the space in-between,' they told Vogue. 'And that's the thing that people are really uncomfortable with. The idea of, 'I can't totally figure you out.' But it's a huge gift to give to yourself: to think you could be more than one thing, that you could be limitless.' Victor was a writer and editor on the satirical feminist website Reductress before being lured into filmmaking; their comic vignettes on YouTube acquired an enthusiastic following that included director Barry Jenkins, whose exquisite gay romance Moonlight won the Best Picture Oscar in 2017. The pair found each other on Twitter; he watched Victor's short films, he said later, and thought 'this person is clearly a filmmaker'. Meanwhile, Victor was writing. Sorry, Baby was not their first script, by any means. 'As a writer, you write and write,' they say. 'And when someone wants to make something, that's your first thing.' Sorry, Baby was written during COVID, while Victor holed up in a cabin with a rescue kitten (on Victor's Instagram feed, they vouch for the healing power of cats and declare they would never make a film in which anything 'remotely sad' happened to one). Victor was working through depression during this period. 'One time I heard someone say they didn't have anxiety or depression, and I was like, 'I don't believe you',' they told Vogue. 'And if it's true, that must be very lonely.' When the script was completed, Jenkins urged Victor to take it to Pastel, the production company he runs with Adele Romanski and Mark Ceryak. There followed a long apprenticeship during which Victor was able to shadow trans filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun as they made I Saw the TV Glow. Loading 'Having made the film, I have a different kind of respect for just how hard it is to make a film and how much heart has to be behind it in order for it to make sense in your life, because it's so intense an experience,' Victor says now. 'So it feels good that as my first film it very much came from inside of me. It's also intense because it has me all over it.' Agnes is not Victor, however; if anything, the difference between them establishes the distance between real events, whatever they are, and the fable of suffering and healing woven within the film. 'I got to create this character who is definitely, yes, partly me but is also this aspirational figure, because she is very blunt and she is really comfortable with silence. I wanted to write someone who felt like in my family but not me. The fictionalising was very joyful too.' Many directors say how hard it is to direct themselves, but that wasn't Victor's experience. 'I really didn't think of her as myself. I always spoke about 'Agnes'. Everyone did that. It was very cool directing myself, like I was giving myself notes, but I didn't have to have a conversation with myself.' Victor's real-life rejection of gender definition finds playful expression in Sorry, Baby when Agnes has to identify her gender on a registration form for jury duty. She ticks female, then doodles a little two-way arrow to the 'male' box, allowing herself a naughty snicker. 'We're told there's boys and girls, but that doesn't feel totally right. So she makes her own little bubble on where she lands on some kind of spectrum,' Victor says. Agnes' best friend and roommate, Lydia – played by English actor Naomi Ackie – is gay and, over the course of the story, falls in love and has a baby. The friends find themselves at very different stages in life. 'Lydia is in this whole place of thinking about bringing life into the world and Agnes is just trying to survive,' Victor says. As much as Sorry, Baby is about trauma, it is also about different kinds of identity. The source of trauma is never described as rape. When Agnes comes home and tells Lydia what happened to her, it is an account of loss of agency and will rather than being physically overpowered, of hitherto certain lines crossed and defences breached. Agnes is her professor Preston Decker's favourite. Louis Cancelmi – another Billions alumnus – makes Decker professorially genial. She admires him; they bond over the writers they love best; he encourages her literary criticism. They banter in tutorials. 'It was important to us that he was charismatic and warm, like this creative partner for Agnes,' Victor says. When Agnes describes Decker pushing his hand down her pants, we share her sheer shock, which is followed by confusion. Rather than unleashing fury, she withdraws into her hurt self. 'I think the film is reckoning with the idea that revenge doesn't always feel like the most honest reaction,' Victor says. 'Because I don't think the reaction to this kind of experience is an eye for an eye. So much of the response is trying to wrap your head around the fact that someone can do such a cruel thing, but also be a person. Later in the film, she says, 'I don't want him to die'. I think in some ways she's a bit disappointed that it's not as simple as that.' Agnes gives up on reporting Decker's crime to anybody after a (very funny) encounter with the university's HR department. The police are not involved; she doesn't want him to go to jail because, as Victor also believes, he would still be a person who was capable of doing The Bad Thing, just banged up in a different place. 'That won't change a thing. Probably her dream would be to know he's thought about it enough and understood it enough that he would never do anything like this again. But there's no path for justice that we know in our society that works that way,' Victor says. Victor made the decision early not to show what happened. 'I think I never wanted to put my audience through a scene like that because we see it so often. But when people ask about it, something I think about is, 'Who's the camera? Who is the one watching?' It's hard for me to imagine where the camera would go.' There are works that focus on the experience of violence that are powerful; they cite I May Destroy You, where the pivotal rape is shot from the victim's point of view – but that wasn't their approach. 'Also, we often hear stories about horrible things that happen to people and we never get to witness them. We have to reckon with the fact we can't witness everything. I wanted the film to have this belief that Agnes' words are enough.' Agnes isn't the kind to wallow in pain; it creeps up on her. She tries for sexual intimacy with her amiable neighbour Gavin (Lucas Hedges) but the moment escapes her. 'It's not violent, but it's going through the motions of something that it feels like she's not really there for,' Victor says. 'One of the things this kind of trauma does is divorce the body from the spirit. I think it's a very surreal thing to understand that the rule we're told, that your body is your own, can be broken by someone. That is a very sad, daunting thing to come to terms with. In this case, it makes Agnes start from scratch with her body again.' That certainly speaks of Eva Victor's experience. 'I spent years floating, just trying to accept that I went through something bad,' they have said. ' Sorry, Baby honours those years lost. The quiet years where you still have to go to work surrounded by constant reminders, reminders that are invisible to others, that you're not like everyone else. The years where your friend's support can save your life, and where strangers can often make you feel safer than the people you're told to trust.' Lydia, Agnes' roommate, is a direct portrait of a friend Victor made in theatre camp as a teenager. They still call each other every day. John Carroll Lynch plays that invaluable stranger, who sees Agnes having a panic attack near his roadside sandwich bar, talks her through it, makes her a sandwich and sits on the kerb with her, munching companionably. Despite its dark background, Sorry, Baby is full of these moments of whimsy and lightheartedness. Hedges, speaking to Variety, compared Victor to Kenneth Lonergan, the master of downbeat realism who directed him in Manchester by the Sea, before saying they are not really like anyone. There is just as much in Victor of the spirit of Miranda July: in their chapter headings, off-kilter jokes and intimacy, something like reading a journal with cartoons in the margin. Victor cites Kelly Reichardt's Certain Women as a touchstone for this film, but is just as enthused by the raunchy Mexican sex comedy Y tu mama tambien, Alfonso Cuaron's breakthrough hit. Loading Eva Victor refuses to be limited by genre or gender. It will be fascinating to see what they do next. Sorry, Baby is at the Melbourne International Film Festival, which runs August 7-24, and in cinemas from September 4;
The Age
4 minutes ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
A bad thing happened to Eva Victor. What followed was very good indeed
At the dark centre of Agnes' life in Sorry, Baby is The Bad Thing. It is never named, but it involves her academic supervisor, an essay to be discussed after hours, a day that turns into evening. We see the curtains being pulled shut behind the windows of a pleasantly bohemian house – his house – with her inside it, but we don't get past the doorstep. What happens inside remains behind that closed door. Afterwards, we move forward with Agnes – by days, months, years – during which she is promoted to a junior professorship, keeps her panic attacks mostly private, gets a cat, is sometimes very funny, and hurts all the time. Eva Victor's muted, witty debut film was an immediate standout at this year's Sundance Film Festival, where it was picked up by the arthouse disruptor A24 for an estimated $US8million, and where Victor won the prestigious Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. Victor, hitherto an actor best known for playing a supporting role in Billions, plays Agnes as well as directing. Their presence on screen underlines the personal urgency of the story. How much is autobiographical remains part of the blurry hinterland of the creative process. Victor has never worked in academia, certainly, but has still captured with sharp accuracy the bitter competition for tenure and a corner office. What feels most emotionally immediate, however, with the full force of personal testimony, is whatever happened behind that closed door. Eva Victor is 31, was born in Paris, grew up in San Francisco and went to a French-language school, where they had a classic adolescent engagement with existentialism. 'I remember reading Camus' The Stranger and thinking, 'Yeah, everything sucks',' they told Variety. 'And I just felt seen.' There was a gradual queer coming-out during university and Victor now identifies as non-binary, using both 'she' and 'they' pronouns. 'Non-binary for me has always been the space in-between,' they told Vogue. 'And that's the thing that people are really uncomfortable with. The idea of, 'I can't totally figure you out.' But it's a huge gift to give to yourself: to think you could be more than one thing, that you could be limitless.' Victor was a writer and editor on the satirical feminist website Reductress before being lured into filmmaking; their comic vignettes on YouTube acquired an enthusiastic following that included director Barry Jenkins, whose exquisite gay romance Moonlight won the Best Picture Oscar in 2017. The pair found each other on Twitter; he watched Victor's short films, he said later, and thought 'this person is clearly a filmmaker'. Meanwhile, Victor was writing. Sorry, Baby was not their first script, by any means. 'As a writer, you write and write,' they say. 'And when someone wants to make something, that's your first thing.' Sorry, Baby was written during COVID, while Victor holed up in a cabin with a rescue kitten (on Victor's Instagram feed, they vouch for the healing power of cats and declare they would never make a film in which anything 'remotely sad' happened to one). Victor was working through depression during this period. 'One time I heard someone say they didn't have anxiety or depression, and I was like, 'I don't believe you',' they told Vogue. 'And if it's true, that must be very lonely.' When the script was completed, Jenkins urged Victor to take it to Pastel, the production company he runs with Adele Romanski and Mark Ceryak. There followed a long apprenticeship during which Victor was able to shadow trans filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun as they made I Saw the TV Glow. Loading 'Having made the film, I have a different kind of respect for just how hard it is to make a film and how much heart has to be behind it in order for it to make sense in your life, because it's so intense an experience,' Victor says now. 'So it feels good that as my first film it very much came from inside of me. It's also intense because it has me all over it.' Agnes is not Victor, however; if anything, the difference between them establishes the distance between real events, whatever they are, and the fable of suffering and healing woven within the film. 'I got to create this character who is definitely, yes, partly me but is also this aspirational figure, because she is very blunt and she is really comfortable with silence. I wanted to write someone who felt like in my family but not me. The fictionalising was very joyful too.' Many directors say how hard it is to direct themselves, but that wasn't Victor's experience. 'I really didn't think of her as myself. I always spoke about 'Agnes'. Everyone did that. It was very cool directing myself, like I was giving myself notes, but I didn't have to have a conversation with myself.' Victor's real-life rejection of gender definition finds playful expression in Sorry, Baby when Agnes has to identify her gender on a registration form for jury duty. She ticks female, then doodles a little two-way arrow to the 'male' box, allowing herself a naughty snicker. 'We're told there's boys and girls, but that doesn't feel totally right. So she makes her own little bubble on where she lands on some kind of spectrum,' Victor says. Agnes' best friend and roommate, Lydia – played by English actor Naomi Ackie – is gay and, over the course of the story, falls in love and has a baby. The friends find themselves at very different stages in life. 'Lydia is in this whole place of thinking about bringing life into the world and Agnes is just trying to survive,' Victor says. As much as Sorry, Baby is about trauma, it is also about different kinds of identity. The source of trauma is never described as rape. When Agnes comes home and tells Lydia what happened to her, it is an account of loss of agency and will rather than being physically overpowered, of hitherto certain lines crossed and defences breached. Agnes is her professor Preston Decker's favourite. Louis Cancelmi – another Billions alumnus – makes Decker professorially genial. She admires him; they bond over the writers they love best; he encourages her literary criticism. They banter in tutorials. 'It was important to us that he was charismatic and warm, like this creative partner for Agnes,' Victor says. When Agnes describes Decker pushing his hand down her pants, we share her sheer shock, which is followed by confusion. Rather than unleashing fury, she withdraws into her hurt self. 'I think the film is reckoning with the idea that revenge doesn't always feel like the most honest reaction,' Victor says. 'Because I don't think the reaction to this kind of experience is an eye for an eye. So much of the response is trying to wrap your head around the fact that someone can do such a cruel thing, but also be a person. Later in the film, she says, 'I don't want him to die'. I think in some ways she's a bit disappointed that it's not as simple as that.' Agnes gives up on reporting Decker's crime to anybody after a (very funny) encounter with the university's HR department. The police are not involved; she doesn't want him to go to jail because, as Victor also believes, he would still be a person who was capable of doing The Bad Thing, just banged up in a different place. 'That won't change a thing. Probably her dream would be to know he's thought about it enough and understood it enough that he would never do anything like this again. But there's no path for justice that we know in our society that works that way,' Victor says. Victor made the decision early not to show what happened. 'I think I never wanted to put my audience through a scene like that because we see it so often. But when people ask about it, something I think about is, 'Who's the camera? Who is the one watching?' It's hard for me to imagine where the camera would go.' There are works that focus on the experience of violence that are powerful; they cite I May Destroy You, where the pivotal rape is shot from the victim's point of view – but that wasn't their approach. 'Also, we often hear stories about horrible things that happen to people and we never get to witness them. We have to reckon with the fact we can't witness everything. I wanted the film to have this belief that Agnes' words are enough.' Agnes isn't the kind to wallow in pain; it creeps up on her. She tries for sexual intimacy with her amiable neighbour Gavin (Lucas Hedges) but the moment escapes her. 'It's not violent, but it's going through the motions of something that it feels like she's not really there for,' Victor says. 'One of the things this kind of trauma does is divorce the body from the spirit. I think it's a very surreal thing to understand that the rule we're told, that your body is your own, can be broken by someone. That is a very sad, daunting thing to come to terms with. In this case, it makes Agnes start from scratch with her body again.' That certainly speaks of Eva Victor's experience. 'I spent years floating, just trying to accept that I went through something bad,' they have said. ' Sorry, Baby honours those years lost. The quiet years where you still have to go to work surrounded by constant reminders, reminders that are invisible to others, that you're not like everyone else. The years where your friend's support can save your life, and where strangers can often make you feel safer than the people you're told to trust.' Lydia, Agnes' roommate, is a direct portrait of a friend Victor made in theatre camp as a teenager. They still call each other every day. John Carroll Lynch plays that invaluable stranger, who sees Agnes having a panic attack near his roadside sandwich bar, talks her through it, makes her a sandwich and sits on the kerb with her, munching companionably. Despite its dark background, Sorry, Baby is full of these moments of whimsy and lightheartedness. Hedges, speaking to Variety, compared Victor to Kenneth Lonergan, the master of downbeat realism who directed him in Manchester by the Sea, before saying they are not really like anyone. There is just as much in Victor of the spirit of Miranda July: in their chapter headings, off-kilter jokes and intimacy, something like reading a journal with cartoons in the margin. Victor cites Kelly Reichardt's Certain Women as a touchstone for this film, but is just as enthused by the raunchy Mexican sex comedy Y tu mama tambien, Alfonso Cuaron's breakthrough hit. Loading Eva Victor refuses to be limited by genre or gender. It will be fascinating to see what they do next. Sorry, Baby is at the Melbourne International Film Festival, which runs August 7-24, and in cinemas from September 4;
San Francisco Chronicle
3 hours ago
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Jeff Buckley's mother to attend San Francisco premiere of new documentary
When 'It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley' premieres in Bay Area theaters next month, audiences will get more than just a cinematic portrait of the late musician whose voice captivated a generation — they'll also hear from someone who knew him best. Mary Guibert, Buckley's mother and a central figure in the new documentary directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Amy Berg, is scheduled to appear in person for a Q&A following the opening-night screening at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco on Aug. 8. The film, which earned critical acclaim after its debut at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, traces Buckley's brief but luminous career. Best known for his haunting 1994 debut album 'Grace,' Buckley delivered a singular vocal style that reimagined songs like Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah' and Nina Simone's 'Lilac Wine' with stunning emotional depth. Buckley drowned in Memphis' Wolf River in 1997 at age 30, leaving behind just — although many posthumous releases have arrived in its wake. In the film, a brief moment captures Buckley listing his influences: 'Love, anger, depression, joy… and Zeppelin.' While his soaring vocals owed much to Robert Plant's blues-rooted howl, Buckley's voice was more fluid, oscillating between ethereal beauty and explosive force. 'It's Never Over' weaves together never-before-seen archival footage with new interviews featuring Guibert, Buckley's former romantic partners Rebecca Moore and Joan Wasser, and bandmates Michael Tighe and Parker Kindred. Musicians Alanis Morissette, Ben Harper and Aimee Mann also appear, with the latter calling Buckley 'literally the best singer I've ever heard.' There's footage of Paul and Linda McCartney visiting him backstage. A quote from David Bowie describes 'Grace' as 'the greatest album ever made.' The documentary also emphasizes the mythology that has grown around Buckley since his death, but grounds it in the complexities of his real life. We hear how his father, the late folk musician Tim Buckley, abandoned him before he was born, yet still loomed over Jeff's creative psyche like a ghost. Jeff was raised by Guibert, who recalls in the film that she first heard him sing from his bassinet. From a young age, music seemed to possess him. In 1991, when he reluctantly participated in a tribute concert for Tim Buckley, his performance was so electric that it marked the start of his own ascent. As a bonus for theatergoers, all screenings from Aug. 8-15 will include nearly half an hour of newly remastered solo concert footage from a 1994 performance in Cambridge, Mass. — a rare artifact pulled from Sony's vault that will be shown exclusively in theaters and never made available online or via streaming. In his own words: Jeff Buckley on music, love and legacy More than two decades before 'It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley' brought his story to the screen, the late singer shared raw insight into his art, his estrangement from his famous father, and the weight of being alive. In this archive interview, conducted just before the release of his debut album 'Grace,' Buckley spoke about the forces that shaped his music. On songwriting: 'It's just about being alive, my songs. And about even emitting sound. It's about the voice carrying much more information than the words do. The little scared kid or the full-on romantic lover is being accessed.' On inspiration and rage: 'I have notebooks everywhere I go. I'm always daydreaming. Or things that happen to me. Sometimes, when you get too smart for yourself, you start worrying about things that everybody should be worrying about but nobody worries about, and the weight is so overwhelming that you feel rage on a global level. And the whole world is so anti-life, especially a world ruled by men who don't want to sit, listen and understand what life is all about.' 'Sensitivity isn't being wimpy. It's about being so painfully aware that a flea landing on a dog is like a sonic boom.' On his father, Tim Buckley: 'I met him one time, and a couple months later he died. But between that, he never wrote and never called, and I didn't even get invited to the funeral. There's just no connection, really. I wish I did get to talk to him a lot. We went out a couple of times. Robert Plant and Jimmy Page have much more influence on me than he ever did.' On his creative aesthetic: 'My music is like a lowdown, dreamy bit of the psyche. It's part quagmire and part structure. The quagmire is important for things to grow in. Do you ever have one of those memories where you think you remember a taste or a feel of something, maybe an object, but the feeling is so bizarre and imperceptible that you just can't quite get a hold of it? It drives you crazy. That's my musical aesthetic, just this imperceptible fleeting memory.'
Forbes
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Jay Ellis And Rabbit Hole Blend Whiskey And Art In New Collaboration
Jay Ellis drinking a cocktail with Rabbit Hole in it. For actor and producer Jay Ellis, whiskey has always been more than a drink. 'It reminds me to savor the moments we have with people,' said the actor known for his roles in Insecure and Top Gun: Maverick. 'So much of it, for me, happens around connection — with friends, family, people I work with.' That ethos of presence, creativity, and storytelling now lives in a bottle, thanks to a new limited-edition single barrel release that is a collaboration between Ellis and Rabbit Hole founder Kaveh Zamanian. A Meeting of Minds—and Palates The collaboration began with a conversation. Zamanian, a former psychologist turned whiskey entrepreneur, had heard about Ellis's love for bourbon and his passion for storytelling. The two met in Park City, Utah, during the Sundance Film Festival, where Zamanian brought a selection of samples for Ellis to taste. 'We sat and tasted through different options,' Zamanian recalled. 'It was a really collaborative, fun process. We talked about what stood out, what felt distinct. Jay has a great palate and a clear creative vision.' The final selection? A single barrel selection of Dareinger, a riff on a core Rabbit Hole offering that is a wheated bourbon finished in Pedro Ximénez sherry casks—rich, smooth, and layered. 'You can have it neat or in a cocktail. It's got depth and balance.' Dareringer Single Barrel Pick with Jay Ellis. The Bottle as a Canvas The bottle's design is just as intentional. Created by South Korean fashion illustrator Kasiq Jungwoo Lee, the label features a modern reinterpretation of Lewis Carroll's White Rabbit—complete with a skateboard and an Apple Watch. 'The skateboard came from my daughter,' Ellis said with a laugh. 'She kept asking for one, and my parents finally gave in. So when I saw that detail, it just clicked.' Other elements are persona to Ellis: the green in the rabbit's jacket is Ellis's favorite color, and the green-and-yellow palette nods to his childhood love of the Seattle SuperSonics. The watch, he said, is a symbol of time—how we spend it, and who we spend it with. 'It was a really cool process,' he said. 'They let me have an imprint—my own expression—through the artist. That doesn't happen often with brand collaborations.' Rabbit Hole Distillery Whiskey as Storytelling For Zamanian, openness to creative input is part of Rabbit Hole's DNA. Since founding the distillery in Louisville in 2012, he's made it a mission to challenge convention—not just in whiskey-making, but in how the industry presents itself. 'I wanted to make manufacturing look attractive,' he said during a recent tour of the Rabbit Hole facility. 'We designed the distillery to be transparent, beautiful, and educational. Every step of the process is visible.' That philosophy extends to the brand's core releases, each of which is named with intention and rooted in local history or personal meaning:Cavehill, a four-grain triple malt bourbon, pays homage to generations of Louisville distillers and the historic Cave Hill Cemetery, where many of bourbon's pioneers are a high-rye bourbon, honors Christian Heigold, a German immigrant and stonemason who settled in Louisville after the Civil War and carved patriotic symbols into his home as a response to anti-immigrant a sour mash rye, celebrates Louisville's rich boxing heritage and the city's legacy of turning local talent into world a sherry-cask finished bourbon, is a tribute to Zamanian's wife—'the daring ringer' who inspired him to take the leap into whiskey-making. 'Every name tells a story,' Zamanian said. 'It's not just about drinking—it's about connection, about learning something new.' Zamanian is known for telling lesser-known stories in whiskey. He's also behind Mary Dowling Whiskey, named after an unsung historic female distiller, and co-authored a book about her. One of the most striking features of the distillery, where both Rabbit Hole and Mary Dowling is made, is a commissioned art piece by Brooklyn-born artist Jeremy Dean. Created in response to Executive Order 13769, which banned travel from several Muslim-majority countries, the piece weaves together threads from the U.S. flag and the flags of the banned nations. It's a quiet but powerful statement about inclusion and identity. 'We don't preach,' Zamanian said. 'We live by example. Art is one way we express our values.' Jay Ellis, Kaveh Zamanian Supporting the Next Generation That commitment to creativity and community is also what drew Ellis to the partnership. Through his short film program, Intrinsic, Ellis supports emerging filmmakers by funding and mentoring their first projects. Rabbit Hole is now contributing to that mission by donating camera equipment and offering additional support to selected filmmakers. 'There are so many barriers for young artists,' Ellis said. 'If you can help open one door, that can change everything.' Zamanian agreed. 'We started sponsoring Sundance because we believe in that ecosystem—of discovery, of giving people a shot. This partnership with Jay is a natural extension of that.' A Shared Vision Both Ellis and Zamanian are outsiders who found their way into traditional industries—Hollywood and Kentucky bourbon, respectively—and brought fresh perspectives with them. Their collaboration is a testament to what can happen when creativity, intention, and craft come together. 'This isn't just about whiskey,' Zamanian said. 'It's about creating something meaningful.' Ellis echoed the sentiment. 'It's personal. It's about savoring the moment, telling stories, and building something that lasts.' The collaboration ($125) is available at Rabbit Hole Distillery in Louisville, Kentucky for a limited time.
Forbes
21 hours ago
- Automotive
- Forbes
Why Chase Sapphire Reserve Members Keep Paying For The Privilege
PARK CITY, UTAH - JANUARY 27: The Chase Sapphire activation is seen during the 2025 Sundance Film ... More Festival on January 27, 2025 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by) 'I'm sitting there waiting every night, waiting for everything to come out,' Michael Nachman-Adelson tells me during the Miami Grand Prix F1 Track Preview and Paddock Tour at the Miami International Autodrome, arranged courtesy of Chase Sapphire. Earlier that week, the Chase Sapphire team had strapped me into a McLaren 720S to race on a different track after learning about my rebellious youth as an illegal street racer. Once I matured into a law-abiding citizen, I traded fast and furious for structured driving academies, each hosted by Porsche, BMW and Lexus. Getting behind a McLaren, however, downshifted me back to a younger self who lived for the thrill of the moment. Nachman-Adelson was describing his nightly ritual of obsessively refreshing Chase Sapphire's event portal so he could be first to register for every exclusive offering. This habit pays off during immersions like Miami F1 week, when Chase Sapphire offers six days of programming across multiple venues—from the aforementioned McLaren driving experience to this exclusive paddock tour to closing concerts at Faena Theater. Each event requires advance booking. Each slot vanishes quickly. He already has his tickets for next year's Miami Grand Prix and has recruited his mother to get a Chase Sapphire Reserve card. This is exactly the kind of customer passion Chase was banking on with the June announcement of a $245 hike to the Sapphire Reserve annual fee. Now at $795, it's the highest annual fee among U.S. premium credit cards, although rumors suggest American Express plans to reclaim that crown. Most brands would brace for backlash over such a steep price increase. Chase, however, shows no signs of concern. The bank's nonchalance is likely warranted. While there's the usual grumblings from online forums, the plausible outcome is that any who leave will be quickly replaced by new aspirants, lured in by a 100,000-point welcome bonus and a $500 Chase Travel promo credit. When it comes to the consumer's passionate pursuit of luxury, Chase Sapphire has had years to perfect the playbook. The Reserve card offers little a rational consumer would say justifies the new $795 fee—and that's the point. If you must ask why it costs so much, well then, it isn't for you. How Chase Sapphire Engineered a New Kind of Addiction Guests attend the Chase Sapphire Room in the Sundance Channel House during Sundance Film Festival on ... More January 22, 2011 in Park City, Utah. When the Chase Sapphire Reserve launched in 2016, it rewired consumer expectations from being less about points and perks and more about the emotional rush of ownership. Unboxing videos flooded YouTube as owning the metal card became the ultimate flex. Demand was so frenzied, Chase ran out of its signature packaging and metal to produce the cards within ten days. The initial inventory was meant to last a year. 'We started this journey in 2016,' Sam Palmer, general manager for Chase Sapphire, told me just before we got into our respective McLarens on The Concours Club Miami track. 'We feel this is the best time we've had with the card. We are investing in the card, in the benefits, in the experiences, in the customer experience.' Palmer describes their strategy as 'portfolio thinking:' a framework that doesn't obsess over ROI on individual events, but rather the cumulative power of their entire ecosystem. 'For some people, it might be some of the partner benefits we have. For some people, it might be the confidence when you travel, you have no foreign transaction fees. For other people, it might be the fact they're able to come to Formula One events.' That holistic view helps explain Chase's McLaren partnership. Originally launched through Chase Auto's 2020 financing agreement with the carmaker, the relationship evolved into an experience-centric collaboration. McLaren delivered elite automotive thrills; Chase delivered access to customers with the means—and the curiosity—to try them. 'McLaren is a partner of the firm and we work with McLaren in our Chase Auto business,' Palmer explained. 'It became quite an organic conversation around, 'hey, we see McLaren has these phenomenal experiences. We see Reserve is bringing phenomenal experiences.'' Andy Thomas, McLaren's VP of marketing and communications, echoed this symbiosis on our Zoom call. 'Within the Chase sphere they have this incredible group of untapped customers. If you think about the JP Morgan Private Wealth Group, they may not have been exposed to McLaren. And then there's the Chase Sapphire group with the means to buy a McLaren.' Through Reserve-sponsored track events, JP Morgan Private Wealth clients who might finance a McLaren with Chase Auto fulfill fantasies of being a race car driver, which inevitably leads to ownership paperwork. For McLaren, it's access to Porsche-fatigued owners looking for their next rush. For Chase, it's fodder for their addictive experiential platform. 'Most people who own a McLaren have never put their cars on the track,' Thomas noted. 'This program enables not only people who might own the car, but we're exposing people who have never driven one of our cars.' Like me, who got off the Zoom wondering which of my Swiss, Dubai or Singapore contacts might be interested in commissioning a McLaren: Lilian Edition. Apparently, if you can find 25 deep-pocketed individuals, McLaren's Special Operations will design an entirely custom vehicle for a group of committed customers willing to pay anywhere from the high seven figures to tens of millions. A past project transformed their Solus GT featured in PlayStation's Gran Turismo Sport game into 25 real $4.5 million cars. New Zealand race-car driver, designer, and engineer Bruce McLaren (1937 - 1970), 26th April 1967. ... More (Photo by McKeown/Daily Express/) Despite a racing heritage dating back to 1964, when founder Bruce McLaren became the first person to own a team, engineer cars, and drive them to victory, the automaker only began selling its consumer cars in late 2011. The retail division is younger than Tesla as a brand. To gain traction, the company needed consumer automotive industry relevance with high net worth visibility. Chase Sapphire needed 'money can't buy' moments. The partnership delivered both. 'We're the youngest brand on the marketplace,' Roger Ormisher, VP of communications and PR for McLaren said over Zoom. 'We're the new kid on the block with the challenger brand. So we do things differently because it attracts an audience.' McLaren's primary target audience is Porsche owners seeking something beyond their third or fourth 911 Turbo or Turbo S. 'Porsche owners are very much into driving and they're very much into cars. They have very similar thoughts and demographics as a McLaren owner,' Thomas explained. 'The McLaren demographics are a bit younger generally, but the mindset is completely the same.' Through Chase Sapphire's engineered moments, McLaren offers these affluent drivers 'something new and different' when they're ready to experience raw, unfiltered feedback connecting driver to asphalt through pure mechanical precision. 'We are the only car in the world that uses hydraulic steering,' Thomas boasted. 'You feel the racetrack when you're driving. You get all that feedback through the wheel.' Chase customers like Nachman-Adelson don't just hear about McLaren's performance potential – they feel it. That feeling is the true worth of Chase Sapphire card ownership. Real-World ROI of Chase Sapphire's Addicted Evangelists Musician Cardi B performs at the Chase Sapphire Lounge presented by SiriusXM, during Art Week on ... More Friday, Dec. 2, 2022, at the SLS South Beach in Miami Beach. (Photo by Scott Roth/Invision/AP) Nachman-Adelson is a case study in the type of experiential addiction Chase Sapphire provokes. With the aid of his nightly ritual, he's attended every Miami Grand Prix since its 2022 debut, including the inaugural race weekend where fans, VIPs, and media were given a special tour of the brand-new circuit on large 18-wheeler trucks. He methodically documents how organizers incorporate fan feedback year after year. 'Every year, it's stepped up higher and higher and higher,' he enthused. 'The first year, they were a little rocky, but as they went, they listened to what we as the fans said we wanted and the next year it was there.' His other Chase Sapphier experiences have included track tours with Latin superstar Maluma, one-on-one time with F1 commentators, and racing experiences in Las Vegas alongside celebrities like Michael B. Jordan. 'The Vegas race, getting out there with Michael B. Jordan and racing and doing everything was for me – who loves race cars, loves coming to F1— like a dream. I'm a huge, diehard F1 fan. It could be two in the morning. I don't care. I'm watching it.' When I met Nachman-Adelson during the Paddock Tour, I jokingly asked Palmer if this superfan had been strategically planted for my benefit. His enthusiasm for Chase Sapphire was almost too on-brand. But Palmer assured me they'd never met before my introduction between them. He then invited Nachman-Adelson to join him as his personal guest later that weekend at the Martinez Brothers concert, illustrating a point he'd made to me earlier: 'As a client of Chase, we want to make sure you get access to the entire breadth of the firm. We want to make sure that it's not just that you're a credit card client, but that you feel it's a better ecosystem that allows you to have access to the entire network of benefits we have, as Chase and JP Morgan.' Nachman-Adelson's passion for Chase Sapphire exceeds what most brands ever organically cultivate. He actively recruits others into the Sapphire ecosystem, convincing Bank of America loyalists and family members to switch over while earning himself even more perks. Chase rewarded his evangelism by featuring photos of him from past events in their promotional materials. Which brings us back to the increased annual fee and why Chase is confident in the math calculated by its engaged customers. The fee is simply a stagehand in a hypnotic opera where access is the diva. 'With the World Cup coming, I'm hoping they have something or have the ability for tickets,' Nachman-Adelson remarked, already anticipating Chase Sapphire next gilded offering. What CMOs Could Learn From the Cult of Chase Sapphire So, can experiential addiction overcome price sensitivity? Early indicators suggest yes. Despite online complaints about the fee increase, customer behavior seems unchanged. Reddit threads are obsessing more over benefit hacks than cancellation. Bloggers and YouTube influencers are posting breakdowns on how to optimize the new credit structure. Chase Sapphire's cult-like following is a potent blend of viral launch strategy, genuinely valuable perks, frequent traveler loyalty programs, exclusive VIP access, and a passionately engaged digital community. For CMOs focused on customer retention, Sapphire's 'portfolio thinking' establishes that, while individual touchpoints matter, the ecosystem sandbox is where smart money plays. 1. Think Inclusively Of Your Full Portfolio Chase Sapphire's customer loyalty grows from a holistic ecosystem incorporating standalone benefits. The brand's strategy of layering travel credits, exclusive events, and partner perks creates a level of emotional investment dismissing rational value equations. 2. Turn B2B Partnerships into B2C Magic The McLaren collaboration is experiential alchemy. What began as a financing partnership was transmuted into a lifestyle play pulling in Chase's high-net-worth customers looking for something extraordinary. Smart CMOs will look beyond their own product lines to uncover similar leverage within their networks. 3. Experience Addiction Creates Price Insensitivity Raising the Reserve card fee to $795 without sparking mass attrition is how experiential loyalty works. When cardholders obsessively refresh event portals just to feel included, price isn't even a consideration. 4. Customer Evangelism Is the Ultimate ROI Chase Sapphire's greatest trick is in building a tribe of fervent customers who happily serve as volunteer brand ambassadors. Nachman-Adelson isn't on payroll, yet he converts competitors' customers and recruits his own family. That kind of organic advocacy exceeds the ROI of even the most celebrated marketing campaigns. 5. In Luxury Marketing, Access > Price Chase Sapphire offers belonging. From courtside culinary events with the Golden State Warriors to VIP access at Sundance and Formula 1, the brand wins by turning exclusivity into currency. For brands seeking to replicate, make seductive access central to your strategy. 'When I'm talking about once-in-a-lifetime experiences, it's about things money can't buy,' Palmer emphasized. 'Like you cannot buy being in the Olympics at the opening ceremony on the water. You cannot buy being in the F1 paddock and pit lane walkthrough. We want this card to be the best card on the market, period.' But Chase Sapphire isn't really just a card anymore. It's a gateway. A membership. A lifestyle status signal. For customers swept up in the psychological stickiness of the experience ecosystem, $795 is merely the price of admission. They're not paying for a card. They're paying to always be on the inside.
