Opening Night: Please Baby Please

On 26 January, we will open the 51st edition of IFFR with the world premiere of Please Baby Please by director Amanda Kramer, about a respectable Lower East Side couple who experience a sexual awakening after meeting a bunch of gangsters. The film is part of our Focus programme, in which we celebrate the oeuvre of the self-styled American filmmaker. After the screening, there is a live Q&A with Amanda Kramer, to ask your burning questions via the chatbox. Before the main film, we screen the short film Stranger Than Rotterdam with Sara Driver, by Brooklyn-based artists Lewie and Noah Kloster.

Official Opening Film IFFR 2021: Please Baby Please

Suze and Arthur are the ideal Lower East Side bohemian couple. He earns a modest living as a clarinettist, she is a stylish housewife, dutifully doing the washing-up. One evening, they witness a murder, committed by a rough gang of greasers in leather jackets, on the sidewalk in front of their house. This introduction to the intimidating Young Gents arouses previously unsuspected emotions and feelings of sexuality in both Arthur and Suze.
Amanda Kramer was able to attract a veritably stellar cast to this unconventional almost-musical, led by an extraordinary Andrea Riseborough (Birdman, 2014; The Death of Stalin, 2017, and TV series ZeroZeroZero, 2019) and Harry Melling (Harry Potter, 2001-2010; The Queen’s Gambit, 2020). None other than Demi Moore shines as Suze’s glamourous upstairs neighbour, who has lovers and – even more impressively – a dishwasher.

To celebrate the festival’s opening, Please Baby Please will be screened online on Wednesday 26 January at 20:00, and will be available on demand from Thursday 27 January.

See also Big Talk: Amanda Kramer.