Watch at Home: ‘Olympic Dreams’ & more from female filmmakers

Nick Kroll and Alexi Pappas in Olympic Dreams (2019)

FF2 Media’s new “Watch at Home” columns list the new films written and/or directed by women filmmakers that are newly available each week on DVD, Video On Demand &/or streaming services.

Here are the new films written and/or directed by women filmmakers now available at home as of 2/14/2020 (with links to FF2 Media reviews posted the week of their theatrical release):

  • BuffaloedTanya Wexler (director)
  • Olympic Dreams – Alexi Pappas (co-writer)
  • The Rest of Us – Aisling Chin-Yee (director), Alanna Francis (co-writer)
  • To All The Boys: P.S. I Still Love You – Sofia Alvarez (co-writer) (Netflix)

DANIELLE’S TOP PICK OF THE WEEK

This week’s selection is Olympic DreamsOlympic Dreams is the first of its kind as this film takes us into the daily lives of an Olympian and a dentist in an active Olympic Athlete Village.

Cross-country skier Penelope (Alexi Pappas) has her first event shortly after the Opening Ceremony takes place during the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018.  Sometime shortly thereafter, Penelope becomes friends with volunteer dentist Ezra (Nick Kroll).  The two of them start hanging out so much during the Winter games that you can’t help but wonder when they’ll just kiss each other already.  Eventually, Penelope runs into Gus Kenworthy only to eventually find out that he’s gay.

Olympic Dreams falls along the traditional beats of the romantic comedy genre.  While it has nothing new to add to the genre, we manage to get an inside look at an Olympian’s daily life.  It’s very rare that we get such an inside look in an narrative feature.  There have been such narratives to take place during the Olympics but how many were filming as the Olympics were going on?  That’s what makes this film so exciting to watch.  While Nick Kroll and Alexi Pappas carry the film’s weight, many Olympians make cameos.  Two of them, Gus Kenworthy and Morgan Schild, have meatier roles in the film.  They do so while working around their own competition events.

At its core, Olympic Dreams is about chasing one’s dreams.  Thanks to the Olympic Foundation For Culture & Heritage’s Olympic Art Project, we get a first-hand Olympic experience.  Who knows if or when this kind of film will ever happen again!

Click HERE for my full review.

© Danielle Solzman (2/14/20) FF2 Media

Featured photos from Olympic Dreams EPK
Photo Credits: IFC Films

Tags: Olympic Dreams

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Danielle Solzman is a Chicago-based film critic and an aspiring filmmaker if she can ever put enough time aside to work on her feature-length trans-led political comedy script. When not in Chicago, she attends various film festivals such as Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, and Toronto. She graduated from Northern Kentucky University with a BA in Public Relations while earning a Masters in Media Communications from Webster University after writing a thesis paper on comic books against the backdrop of the American political culture.
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