For members at the Explore category and above, tickets will become available two weeks before the screening date, starting at 10:30 a.m. Additional tickets will be available to members and the general public one week before the screening date, also at 10:30 a.m. Please note that space is extremely limited and tickets will be in high demand.
Rotting in the Sun. 2023. USA/Mexico. Directed by Sebastián Silva. Screenplay by Silva, Pedro Peirano. With Silva, Jordan Firstman, Catalina Saavedra. DCP. Courtesy MUBI. In Spanish; English subtitles. 109 min.
Hard up for work, addicted to ketamine, and contemplating suicide, filmmaker Sebastián Silva (playing a version of himself) sets out for a holiday at a gay beach resort. While oscillating between the pages of The Trouble with Being Born and glancing at naked men luxuriating on the beach, Silva is ripped out of his daze as ostentatious comedian/influencer Jordan Firstman (also portraying a version of himself) flails in the water shouting for help. This encounter kicks off a drug-infused, chaotic saga, as Firstman relentlessly pitches Silva ideas for collaboration and, mostly out of annoyance, Silva agrees and reluctantly invites Firstman to his Mexico City home. However, when Firstman arrives at the apartment, Silva is nowhere to be found, and the housekeeper (expertly played by Catalina Saavedra, loosely re-adapting her role from Silva’s film The Maid) is unusually cagey. Firstman becomes a hapless amateur sleuth, trying to discover why Silva has disappeared. A refreshingly meta, dark send-up of creative work, egotism, and class, Rotting in the Sun is a rare, of-the-moment satire.