IKONOPHILE Z
a Film by Richard C. Ledes
A light romantic comedy about the extinction of all life on earth.
Starring T. Ryder Smith, Mitzi Akaha, & Betsy Aidem
Self-styled “revolutionary” Chris is besotted with critical theory and can’t stop talking about it. He is about to self-publish a book entitled “On Distraction”, and is wrestling with “branding” himself, as per the advice of Laura, a photographer with a special interest in ikons and a sideline baking pot brownies.
Director’s Statement
When I undertook Ikonophile Z I had in mind the work of Hong Sang Soo, the Korean filmmaker whose extraordinary films are made within a simple set of rules. The filming of each scene must be done with the camera on a tripod that never moves. The camera can pan or tilt and the zoom lens can zoom in or out but the camera never moves from wherever it is placed for that scene. If there are seven shots that means in a film by Hong Sang Soo that there are seven scenes. He chooses locations prior to filming but the dialogue for each scene and the action he writes the morning of shooting that particular scene.
I stuck to the first rules of Hong Sang Soo but composed a screenplay prior to shooting. As in the case of many of Hong Sang Soo’s films, mine is about a love triangle.I made a series of short films during Covid, often working remotely from the actors or dancers. This is my Covid feature. The choice of the structure it seems to me was also influenced by the plague.
Critical theory is the means by which one character tries to seduce another. This small feature was made between my two features about psychoanalysis. Despite the importance of the work of Lacan and Freud for critical theory neither is ever mentioned. However two of the characters do dance to a song called Death Driver, which obviously references the concept of the death drive which was so important to both the work of Freud and Lacan. I hope you enjoy this melancholy comedy.
- Richard, May 2025
Reviews
IKONOPHILE Z (2024)
Synopsis
Self-styled “revolutionary” Chris (T. Ryder Smith) is besotted with critical theory and can’t stop talking about it. He is about to self-publish a book entitled “On Distraction”, and is wrestling with “branding” himself, as per the advice of Laura, (Mitzi Akaha), a photographer with a special interest in ikons and a sideline baking pot brownies.
In NYC over the course of several weeks, as Covid restrictions ease, Laura, Chris and his long-time on-and-off girlfriend, sociology professor Vanessa, (Betsy Aidem), meet virtually and in person to debate a vast range of thinkers and issues including identity politics, universality, praxis, the lumpenproletariat, escape from capitalism, the Haitian revolution, #MeToo, BLM, Guy Debord, Bernard Steigler, Achille Mbembe, the plays of Sophocles, the Twilight Zone, art-house cinema and fully-automated communism.
The film culminates in a trip Chris and Laura take upstate where their hotel balcony overlooks Indian Point nuclear power plant. Will Chris stop talking long enough to make either relationship work? Does everything have to change for anything to change? And more importantly, have the birds of Central Park been replaced by cleverly-designed machines?
Cast
T. Ryder Smith
Chris
Mitzi Akaha
Laura
Betsy Aidem
Vanessa
Crew
Richard C. Ledes
Director, Writer, Producer
Garance Arditti, J.B. Bruno & Ged Dickersin
Co-Producers
Sofija Mesicek
Costume Designer
Silent Strike
Music composed and arranged by
Antonio Rossi
Director of Photography
Screenings
Online screenings with the filmmaker present are available for groups. Groups will have access to the film for 96 hours book-ended around a discussion with the filmmaker over zoom or other form of online conferencing. The total cost includes an honorarium for the filmmaker as well as the purchase of a ticket for each participant. This total amount, choice of private streaming platform (Eventive or Vimeo) and the means of payment are to be negotiated.