L FOR LEISURE (10th Anniversary!) + SPECIAL LIVE PERFORMANCE
Dir. Lev Kalman & Whitney Horn
For August, Shadow Kitchen hosts a special 10th anniversary screening of L FOR LEISURE (2015), the cult 16mm comedy by Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn.
Set in 1992–93 and unfolding across seasonal vacations, the film follows a group of over-intellectual grad students as they drift through beachside getaways, sports matches, and impressionistic musings on metaphysics and lifestyle. With an original sundrenched synth score by John Atkinson, the film features a cast of non-professional actors, including filmmakers Mati Diop (DAHOMEY, 2024), Gabriel Abrantes and Benjamin Crotty (Co-Directors on VISIONARY IRAQ, 2008).
Equal parts Hal Hartley, Whit Stillman, and Éric Rohmer, L FOR LEISURE is a wry, atmospheric portrait of 90s-era innocence, slackerdom and the search for meaning through leisure. Shot over four years during real-life holidays and breaks, the film embraces an episodic, low-budget, DIY spirit that also shapes Kalman and Horn’s later work (DREAM TEAM, 2024). The result is a playful yet poignant reflection on the contradictions of intellect, idleness, and post-adolescent drift.
Join us on August 21st for this anniversary screening, followed by a special live performance and conversation with co-director Lev Kalman. Don’t miss this chance to revisit—or discover—this radical experiment in form and process!
L FOR LEISURE
2014. USA / Mexico / Iceland / France. 74 min. Color 16mm.
Film by Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn, Special Affects Films
World Premiere, International Film Festival Rotterdam 2014
US Premiere, BAMCinemaFest 2014
SYNOPSIS:
Set to the rhythm of the 1992-93 school-year calendar, L FOR LEISURE is an experimental comedy following awkward graduate students on vacations all around the world. Find out what happens when people stop being real… and start being polite.
“DELIGHTFUL … The period details—the Capri Sun pouches, the absurd height of all waistbands for both male and female attire, the flyers for the campus “AIDS dance”—are exact without ever becoming fussy… Like Boyhood and Do the Right Thing, L for Leisure invites us to look back while pointing the way ahead.”
– Melissa Anderson, Artforum
“L for Leisure” offers a metaphysical dream of pure vision, one that is attainable only through leisure and landscape. “L” is also for luxury, and the kind of inner experience that they find truly enriching is a luxury, albeit the kind of abstemious luxury that is based not on physical comfort but on the search for rarefied beauty—and the attempt to inhabit, investigate, preserve, and convey it. That pursuit is itself the essence of cinema.”
– Richard Brody, The New Yorker
Lev Kalman has been making films together with his collaborator Whitney Horn since 2003. Their distinctive style blends lo-fi 16mm photography, dreamy electronic music, philosophical musings and steady bursts of absurdist humor.
Their feature films “Blondes in the Jungle,” “L for Leisure” and “Two Plains & a Fancy” and “Dream Team” have played at festivals including International Film Festival Rotterdam, BFI London Film Festival and the LA Festival of Movies. “L for Leisure” was named among “The 100 Best Films of the Decade” in Little White Lies magazine.
Since 2012, Kalman has been based in San Diego. He is on staff at the UC San Diego Media Teaching Lab, and is a programmer at the Otherwise Film Festival and the San Diego Asian Film Festival. Lev is currently planning the release of a new short film, “Twin Snakes.” This summer, he is beginning the Low Residency MFA program at School of the Art Institute of Chicago.