Dir. Kati Kelli (2024), Produced by Jordan Wippell and Jane Schoenbrun
A mixtape/documentary comprised of the visual art of internet personality Kati Kelli.
Kati Kelli was a homeschooled visual artist from Los Angeles who ran a YouTube channel until her death in 2019. Her films ran the gamut from product parodies to comedic skits, introductory pseudo-bios to harrowing media manipulation. She was an artist in every sense of the word, and while it's easy to see how she slipped through the tracks of mainstream society, it's also devastatingly sad. She was exceptionally talented, and it took until after her death that her films could be compiled and sent out into the greater world so that those who are so inclined can appreciate her art.
Enter producers Jordan Wippell (World of Death) and Jane Schoenbrun (We're All Going to the World's Fair). The duo decided to release Kelli's homemade art in long-form, compiling some of their favorites of her videos into a feature-length exploration of the art behind the madness. Put together as a mixtape (or, perhaps more accurately and platform-appropriately, a playlist), Girl Internet Show: A Kati Kelli Mixtape is a wild ride from start to finish, a collection of single-participant art that is unlike anything you've ever seen before. It's a tribute, but it's also an interesting social experiment, a unique view into the life of a girl that you have never met before in a way that makes you feel like you know her perhaps deeper than she knows herself. Or perhaps not. Perhaps she knows herself better than any of us will ever know ourselves.
Girl Internet Show is at once fascinating, darkly hilarious, and oddly terrifying. The videos contained in the film are not particularly well made, nor are they especially inventive. This feels like a collection of films you'd see on YouTube from that random channel you stumble across with three subscribers and like fifteen total views. It's bizarre, with an odd, almost off-putting sense of humor and zero reverence for any sort of good taste. And yet... it's also kind of genius? It's difficult to explain without watching the film, because any sort of attempt to tell the audience what it's about will sound either insane or boring as hell, and yet it's somehow both and also utterly brilliant.
Kati makes herself the object of our attention for no other reason than that she exists. She is an internet object, and while there is clear artistic talent within these videos, that doesn't feel like the point of it all. No, Kelli is just another person within the screen. Her videos are nonsense, and there's no real point to any of them. Her screen is a fishbowl, a rambling, emo, punk-rock, hilarious, dark, depressing, devastatingly sad introduction to a girl who left the world far too soon. It's demented and yet the most sane it could possibly be. Kelli claims to be dishonest, but this is her, on film, in a way that could not possibly be replicated.
This is not a film that you recommend, nor is it a film that will likely be appreciated by very many in the audience. It is nonetheless touching, powerful, and maniacally inventive. If you're a fan of visual art, demented humor, or peculiarly scary, you should check this one out. Be warned, however: you've never seen anything like this, and you likely never will again. For that lone, Kati Kelli deserves to be mourned and appreciated. She was one of a kind, and it's wonderful that we can appreciate her after her death in a way that she wasn't in life.
Who this movie is for: Visual art appreciators, Mixtape fans, Content creators
Bottom line: Girl Internet Show is bizarre, laugh-out-loud funny, and darkly depressing all at the same time. It's brilliant, but it's not for everyone. If you appreciate the more avant-garde style of art that's found on the darker corners of YouTube, this is one you'll likely really enjoy. If you don't, you very much will not. I, for one, loved it, and I can't wait for people to see it at Fantastic Fest.
