August 8, 3:00PMFinsbury Park Picturehouse
dir. Jillian Frank & Avalon Fast
Canada, 2026, 105 mins
August 8, 8:00PM
Institute of Contemporary Arts
Early twenties Iris and Palmer never left their hometown. They work at the same restaurant, share the same bed, and both have a habit of drinking and driving. They run into Levi, a guy they used to know. They spend time with him and his cousin, Phoenix, in cars, backyards, and other people’s bedrooms. When Levi shares a dream he had with Iris things change between the four of them. The reality of the summer becomes faded, the parties die. The four end in a field of unified confusion.
Drinking and Driving is something of a miracle movie. Frank and Fast work against conventional ideas of craft, embracing limitation as formal strategy and cinematic ingenuity. The film carries the aura of sweaty summer days, intoxicated with friends, suspended in the hope of fleeting intimacy. What begins as euphoria gradually gives way to a very specific kind of summertime ennui, evoking deeply personal memories that feel both specific and strangely universal, where experience itself becomes blurred and half-remembered.
Nonetheless it resists the charm of sentimentality; instead, memory is rendered as something unstable, closer to a dream you can’t quite translate into language. Since its premiere at LAFM in April, Drinking and Driving has begun to develop a cult following and establishes its writers, directors (and stars) as two of the most exciting emerging filmmakers working today. A nauseating, disoriented debut of real formal confidence, the film announces a filmmaking partnership not to be missed.
This UK Premiere will be followed by a video Q&A with directors Jillian Frank and Avalon Fast.
- Ned Caderni
starring —
