Madeline's Madeline 15

Newcomer Helena Howard plays Madeline, a talented teenager living with a mental illness. Studying in a prestigious acting class, Madeline is encouraged by the ambitious director, Evangeline (Molly Parker), to weave her experiences and troubled relationship with her mother into their collective art. But the lines between performance and reality begin to blur, generating a battle between imagination and appropriation that reaches beyond the rehearsal space and into their lives.

Madeline’s Madeline explores ideas of race and identity, cultural appropriation and exploitation, as well as the creative process and the mysterious areas of overlap between art and life. It is an incredibly invigorating work that has been unanimously hailed by critics as solidifying director Josephine Decker’s position at the forefront of contemporary experimental filmmaking.