Zola

classified 18
Film

Please note: This was screened in Aug 2021

Director
Janicza Bravo
Cast
Taylour Paige, Riley Keough, Nicholas Braun
Details
86 mins, 2020, USA
Primary language
English

"Y’all wanna hear a story about why me & this bitch here fell out? It’s kind of long but full of suspense.” - Zola, circa 2015.

Thus began the odyssey of one A’Ziah King, aka Zola. From acclaimed writer/director Janicza Bravo, Zola's stranger-than-fiction saga, which she first told in a now-iconic series of viral, uproarious tweets, comes to dazzling cinematic life.

Zola (newcomer Taylour Paige), a Detroit waitress, strikes up a new friendship with a customer, Stefani (Riley Keough), who seduces her to join a weekend partying in Florida. What at first seems like a glamorous trip full of “hoeism” rapidly transforms into a 48-hour journey involving a nameless pimp, an idiot boyfriend, some shady guys in Tampa, and other unexpected adventures in this wild, see-it-to-believe-it tale.

Bravo's second feature is a comedy-thriller that starts off as a free-spirited, female-centric road movie and detours into avenues both criminal and incredible. Beginning as an After Hours-like descent into the unknown, Zola builds and transforms into something else entirely: a journey reclaimed and reframed, several months later, by the person who experienced it.


× Close

Help us make our website work better for you

We use Google Analytics to gather information on how our website is used. This information helps us to make changes to our website that improve the usefulness and overall experience for our visitors. If you would like to help us to make continuous improvements to our website, please allow us to set "first-party" cookies (only readable by us) so that we can distinguish visitors and gain greater insights.

Allow cookies for analytics Deny cookies for analytics