Director and editor Christina Xing has signed with Venice-based production company Durable Goods for U.S. commercial representation. She had previously been handled by Adolescent Content.
Studying filmmaking and perfecting her craft from a Gen Z perspective has allowed Xing to develop a fresh vision for representing underrepresented voices in ways that reverberate with modern youth culture. Just out of high school, her work drew early attention from brands including Tinder, Budweiser, Snapchat and Crayola, and from music labels such as Sony Music and Terrible Records.
Her first musical featurette, How the Moon Fell From the Sky and No One Even Noticed, reached viral status internationally, leading to “Semi-Finalist” status for MACRO (the studio behind the Best Picture Oscar-nominated Fences) and The Black List’s episodic lab by age 19.
“Christina brings a unique ability not only to create narratives that authentically resonate with Gen Z audiences, but that deliver something unexpected through sophisticated cinematic influences,” noted Rebecca Wray, executive producer of Durable Goods. “Her fresh perspective and passion for telling diverse stories is exactly what the advertising industry needs right now.”
“I’ve long admired the work of the Durable Goods’ directors from afar, and it’s a thrill to join a roster of such talented filmmakers,” said Xing. “As a woman of color, partnering with an EP who has experienced the same perspective with such a depth of knowledge is such an inspiration for me. I’m thrilled to begin collaborating with Rebecca and the entire Durable Goods team.”
Raised in Birmingham, Alabama, Xing credits classic Americana and French New Wave cinema, as well as a background in theater and orchestra, with inspiring her saturated surrealist lens and affinity toward nostalgia. She graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy for Motion Picture Arts high school in 2017, and the Art Center College of Design with a B.F.A in Directing and Film Production in 2020. Her work has been recognized in such top outlets as Paper Magazine, Billboard, the FADER, Refinery 29, TIDAL’S: Video of the Week, OUT Magazine, The Gay Times, and more. She most recently won the award for Best Music Video at NFFTY in 2019, and has screened at several Oscar-qualifying film festivals all over the world.
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
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