Director Jane Schoenbrun is confident that their new queer slasher comedy, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, will be a hit

Let’s make it a gay start to the day – this one is for our site manager, Emily, and two of her favourites: Gillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder are in Cannes to promote Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, and all three were at the photo call today to kick off the festival’s Un Certain Regard lineup for this year.

Teenage Sex and Death is queer slasher comedy and camp, with Hannah playing a filmmaker directing the next installment of a horror franchise who wants to cast the original final girl, Gillian, in her movie.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a contender for the Queer Palm and will open in theatres August 7. In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Jane said that:

“This movie was very consciously designed to be fun … and to bring in a lot of people to have a discussion about sex and gender and overcoming trauma. I don’t know any other movies — certainly any other Hollywood movies — that are having that conversation this way, from this perspective.”

They’re not wrong, because they also share with THR that almost no one wanted to take on their film:

“Everyone except for Mubi passed on this movie, to be totally blunt. Every major studio and distributor passed on the film, and I think it’s because of the limits of what kinds of queer and trans stories are deemed commercial or not commercial.”

So I love their confidence about how Teen Sex and Death will perform:

“When I look around in our ‘post-woke, post-Biden’ era, I don’t see any other trans artists getting budgets, and that’s a f-cking shame. I shouldn’t be the only one who’s making movies at this level of budget.” They fully expect to prove those finance doubters wrong: “I think this movie will be a hit.”

With that in mind, the film’s two stars will no doubt do the most to promote it. With big hair and in pretty little black dresses. Gillian showed up at the photo call at full tress volume – which we don’t see often from her, and I’m obsessed that she decided to dial it up like this:

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Hannah meanwhile is in the cutest ribbed black dress (ALAÏA), cut high on the sides and maybe the only pair of thong sandals that I don’t hate. Surprising because it’s not only a thong but a wedge heel, LOL… lucite or mirrored? It’s hard to tell but, again, on paper I’d tell you the combination of those details is abhorrent. In person, on her, I’m actually into it. A miracle!

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Hannah is best known obviously for her work on Hacks (only three more episodes to go until the series finale) in which the central relationship anchoring the story is between her Ava and Jean Smart’s Deborah, one of the best friendships in television history. But she also seems to be vibing hard with Gillian who is taunting Jean with their chemistry. Uh, yeah, the chemistry is definitely chemistry-ing here.