Indie Comedy UNIDENTIFIED OBJECTS Understands Intersectionality
Images Courtesy Unidentified Objects Film, LLC“Only the language of dreams and fantasies can capture how I (and so many others in this melting pot world) feel. Immigrants and other outsiders share a liminal space together. Neither here nor there.”
— Juan Felipe Zuleta
Every once and a while you come across a film that breaks you open in the best of ways, and for my trip to Fantastic Fest in Austin, that film was Unidentified Objects (Juan Felipe Zuleta, 2022).
The film follows the story of Peter (Matthew August Jeffers), a gay little person dealing with chronic pain and illness, as well as depression after the loss of a friend. When the not-your-average-girl-next-door Winona J, J for Jordan (Sarah Hay) convinces Peter to drive her to Canada, he knows her reasons are disengenous but agrees to go out of economic necessity, since he’s struggled to find work lately.
Peter loves Anton Chekhov, which I’ll forgive (I’m only kidding), and thinks of himself as intelligent, perhaps too intelligent for the world he’s forced to be a part of. He’s also cranky, unsentimental, realistic, and a delightful character to watch the talented Matthew August Jeffers bring to life on screen. This plays well against the starry-eyed, hopeful, and somewhat trashy-yet-loveable Winona, a sex worker who is convinced she has been abducted by aliens.
What follows is an unexpectedly heartbreaking road trip through the strange and magical.
As Peter encounters more and more bizarre phenomena, including manipulations of reality (or fantasies, depending on your interpretation), his character begins to open up both in mindset and emotion. Peter’s daydreams become vivid magical realism sequences where he acts out his desires.
Colombian filmmaker & commercial director Juan Felipe Zuleta does a fantastic job managing the speculative elements of Unidentified Objects — which could be interpreted as metaphor (two outcasts find acceptance by identifying with non-human entities) — but the filmmaker chose to respect the genre and avoid the kind of bait and switch common in low-budget scifi films.
The result is a heartfelt, hilarious, and arresting exploration of intersecting identities in the face of a harsh world. Oh, and lots of beautiful shots with magical bisexual lighting and Rocky-Horror-esque costumes.
The film was created by a first-generation American immigrant and is one of the few films in history to feature a little person in the lead. It was also made by a diverse crew in the height of the pandemic.
The soundtrack perfectly mixes punk and space music and was created in collaboration with lead actress Sarah Hay. Queer musical icon Perfume Genious contributed songs to the film, as well as an analog synthesizer by Sebastian Zuleta. Indeed, every aspect of this indie film was a collaboration, from the writing to sound to cinematography.
In the screening I watched, the director emphasized the importance of highlighting diverse characters. “We were asking ourselves: What characters have we never seen as the lead in a movie? Whose lives need to be lived on the silver screen?”
Matthew August Jeffers, who says that he draws inspiration from actors like Peter Dinklage of Game of Thrones fame, gives absolutely bar-none one of the most nuanced and delightful performances of the year. One of my favorite scenes is when Peter explains himself to Winona as “a circle within a circle within a circle.” It’s a poignant way of describing intersectionality: As a gay man, and a little person, and a person with a disability, Peter’s identity is a constant struggle to him. As the circles get closer and closer, it’s easier to feel more and more removed.
Intersectionality asks us to look at multiple aspects of marginalization. Usually, it’s described as a pyramid — the least marginalized people are at the top. But this image has always struck me as less fluid. Both Peter and Winona are characters struggling to come to grips with different levels of being an outcast. They are trapped in these circles of identity.
“Only the language of dreams and fantasies can capture how I (and so many others in this melting pot world) feel. Immigrants and other outsiders share a liminal space together. Neither here nor there.”
— Juan Felipe Zuleta
Matthew August Jeffers was born with a form of dwarfism so rare that it was initially only referred to as “Matthew’s Disease.” Jeffers does not approach the character with kid gloves, and he was responsible for convincing the director to go the full distance with one of the key scenes in the movie, which I won’t spoil, but I will say it is an extremely vulnerable moment on screen.
“Aside from Unidentified Objects, every part I have played on stage and screen was written for a person of average height,” says Jeffers. “I’ve always had to go into the audition room and change a director’s mind about how they see a role. But this project marks a change for me and for all of us in the LP community. So I’m here with my shovel to try and pave the way for others as much as I can.”
I can say, Matthew, you succeeded.
This one made me smile to watch, and I hope it gets bigger distribution.
After world premiering at 2022 Inside Out, the film won awards this summer at Frameline and Outfest LBGTQ+ film festivals. Fantastic Fest 2022 marks its Texas premiere.
*This article is part of our coverage of the 2022 Alamo Drafthouse Fantastic Fest film festival. We thank the Drafthouse for providing us with press access to the festival.
Interstellar Flight Magazine publishes essays on what’s new in the world of speculative genres. In the words of Ursula K. Le Guin, we need “writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope.” Visit our Patreon to join our fan community on Discord. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
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