Spring Breakers, Under The Skin, Ex Machina, The VVitch, The Lobster, American Honey, A Ghost Story, The Florida Project, Lady Bird, Hereditary, Moonlight, Mid90s, High Life... What do all these movies have in common? To begin with, we are talking about movies whose directors have been (in one way or the other) defining the most vibrant and eloquent present of Hollywood. Harmony Korine, Jonathan Glazer, Alex Garland, Robert Eggers, Yorgos Lanthimos, Andrea Arnold, David Lowery, Sean Baker, Greta Gerwig, Ari Aster, Barry Jenkins, Jonah Hill and Claire Denis, mentioned in the same order as their corresponding movies, are undoubtedly part of the club of filmmakers who have long ripped the conceptual veil inherited from the 20th century, a move that was necessary to start living in the 21st century.
A24 AND THE CINEMA WE DESERVE IN THE 21ST CENTURY
The film industry suffered a crisis that almost completely wiped out independent auteur cinema. Thankfully, the A24 Films production company has been committed to redefining the face of 21st-century cinema for years.
Not only that: all these films are also looking for new frontiers in generic horizons that seemed lost forever. Horror, sci-fi, teen movies... That's the cinema we grew up with and that, unexpectedly, we can continue to enjoy even today with new explorable levels of meaning, much more in line with our growth into adulthood. And that's all because of the third common factor of these films: they all belong to A24 Films, the production company that was needed in these times when there seems to be room only for blockbusters or low-cost movies, pushing aside that independent auteur cinema that gave us so many masterpieces in the previous decades.
The reason for A24's existence is precisely that middle ground, and it has been like this since the company was founded. In 2013, Daniel Katz, David Fenkel and John Hodges (all with long curricula in the world of cinema) decided to found this company and, in fact, the same year they brought to the table not only the already mentioned Spring Breakers but also the proverbial works of Sofia Coppola (The Bling Ring) and Roman Coppola (A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III).
From there, the rest is history... No to mention, obviously, remarkable episodes such as the storming of A24 on television (such as Euphoria, produced by Drake), the launch of a clothing line together with Mid90s (all in all considering that aesthetics is a very important aspect of the Jonah Hill movie) and the release of the Moonlight script (with a prologue by Frank Ocean himself). It is clear that at A24 they are well aware of what the potential public of their films is, and of the imagery they have been building little by little. Imagery that's about to deliver imminent wonders you should already add to your calendar of releases: First Cow by Kelly Reichardt, Green Knight by David Lowery, On The Rocks by Sofia Coppola... And the list goes on and on. It won't certainly end here.