Idiotka
Description
Nastasya Popov’s delightful debut is a playful sendup of reality fashion shows and a heartwarming portrait of a designer who definitely (and defiantly) thinks outside the box. Margarita (Anna Baryshnikov, Love Lies Bleeding) lives with her extended family of Russian Jewish émigrés in West Hollywood—ne’er-do-well brother, ex-con father, and hilariously kvetching grandmother. Behind on rent, she survives by selling fashion knockoffs with designer labels sewn in until she gets busted. In a “Hail Mary” moment, she auditions for a brand-new reality show and makes the cut! Guided by a producer, played with irrepressible glee by Camila Mendes (Riverdale), to accentuate her quirky charm, Margarita gives her all to “Slay. Serve. Survive.” as the show’s tagline has it. With sharply delineated characters paying humorous tribute to Popov’s own background, Idiotka never misses the chance to both satirize and pay homage to the types of shows where stylish dreamers hope to stake a future in fashion. —Rod Armstrong
Biographies
Nastasya Popov is a writer-director from Los Angeles. Her script for Idiotka was selected for the SFFILM Invest Lab and her documentaries and shorts have won numerous awards. She holds a BA in Creative Nonfiction and Slavic Literature from Northwestern. Idiotka is her feature debut.
Joe Talbot is a fifth-generation San Franciscan and award-winning filmmaker. His feature-length debut, The Last Black Man in San Francisco — adapted from the life of childhood friend and longtime collaborator, Jimmie Fails — won the 2019 Sundance Film Festival Directing Award, as well as a Special Jury Prize for Creative Collaboration. The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis called Talbot’s emerging work “heart-skipping, astonishing and exultant” and made it the NYT Critics Pick. Rolling Stone hailed the debut feature as “the best film of 2019”.
