Fresh Kill

{{short description|1994 US experimental film by Shu Lea Cheang}}

{{Infobox film

| name = Fresh Kill

| image = Fresh Kill Film Poster.jpg

| alt =

| caption =

| native_name =

| director = Shu Lea Cheang

| producer = Jennifer Fong
Shari Frilot

| writer = Jessica Hagedorn

| screenplay =

| story =

| based_on =

| starring = {{unbulleted list|Sarita Choudhury|Erin McMurtry|Abraham Lim|José Zúñiga|Laurie Carlos}}

| narrator =

| music = Vernon Reid

| cinematography = Jane Castle

| editing = Lauren Zuckerman

| production_companies = Airwaves Project
ITVS
Film4 Productions

| distributor = Strand Releasing

| released = {{Film date|1994|4|23|USA Film Festival|1996|1|12|United States}}

| runtime = 80 minutes

| country = United Kingdom
United States

| language = English

| budget =

| gross =

}}

Fresh Kill is a 1994 British-American experimental film directed by Shu Lea Cheang and written by Jessica Hagedorn. It stars Sarita Choudhury and Erin McMurtry as Shareen Lightfoot and Claire Mayakovsky, two lesbian parents who are drawn into a corporate conspiracy involving the Fresh Kills Landfill. Fresh Kill was an official selection at the 1994 Berlin International Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival and is noted for its influence on hacker subculture, with an article about the film for the now-defunct hacker publication InfoNation containing one of the first uses of the term "hacktivism".

Synopsis

Shareen Lightfoot and Claire Mayakovsky raise their daughter Honey near the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island in New York City. Shareen works as a salvager recovering refuse from the landfill, while Claire works as a waitress at a sushi restaurant. The city is heavily contaminated with pollution that adversely affects local animals and food; Claire brings home contaminated fish from the restaurant that is eaten by Honey, who begins glowing green and then vanishes. Shareen and Claire discover that the multinational GX Corporation is responsible for the pollution and Honey's disappearance, and become involved in an effort to hack and expose the company with sushi chef and hacker Jiannbin Lui, and poet and dishwasher Miguel Flores.

Cast

Sources: {{cite web |title=Fresh Kill: New York premiere of a new 35mm restoration for its 30th anniversary! |url=https://www.bam.org/film/2024/fresh-kill |website=BAM.org |publisher=Brooklyn Academy of Music |access-date=22 April 2025}}{{cite web |title=Fresh Kill (1994) |url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/454442/fresh-kill |website=Turner Classic Movies |access-date=14 June 2020}}

{{Cast listing|small=yes|

Sarita Choudhury as Shareen Lightfoot
Pedro Pietri as Condom Poet

Kate Valk as Mother Mary

Abraham Lincoln Lim as Jiannbin Lui
Ching Valdes-Aran as Boss Man
Erin McMurtry as Claire Mayakovsky

Will Kempe as Stuart Sterling

José Zúñiga as Miguel Flores
Laurie Carlos as Mimi Mayakovsk
Nelini Stamp as Honey
Ron Vawter as Roger Bailey
Robbie McCauley as Nina Simpson
Karen Finley as Bernadette Cherryhome
Rino Thunder as Clayton Lightfoot, Sr.

Nicky Paraiso as Supermarket Manager
Alva Rogers as Woman in Locker

Jessica Hagedorn as Bookseller
George C. Wolfe as Cat Lover

}}

Production

Fresh Kill was directed by Shu Lea Cheang and written by Jessica Hagedorn. The film bills itself as "eco cyber noia", the term "cyber noia" (or "cybernoia") having been coined by Cheang to describe "massive intrusions of networking technology into people's lives," and what she foresaw as "a future where multinational media empires clash with hackers." Cheang has stated that the film was motivated by a desire to depict the relationship between the media and environmental racism, drawing parallels between the dumping of industrial toxic waste in the Third World with "the dumping of garbage TV programs" into Third World countries. Hagedorn has stated that she wished to invert typical expectations and cliché stock characters, though sought not to "reverse things for their own sake," noting that Honey's parentage and the differing races of characters with direct biological relations are specifically never explained.

Release

The film premiered on April 23, 1994 at the USA Film Festival, and was an official selection at the 1994 Berlin International Film Festival{{cite web|title=Fresh Kill|url=https://www.berlinale.de/en/archive/jahresarchive/1994/02_programm_1994/02_filmdatenblatt_1994_19940676.html|website=Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin|date=1994}} and at the Toronto International Film Festival. It was released theatrically in the United States on January 12, 1996. Fresh Kill also screened at the Whitney Biennial in 1995, and at the Asian American International Film Festival in 2019.{{cite web |title=Asian American International Film Festival: Fresh Kill |url=https://asiasociety.org/new-york/events/asian-american-international-film-festival-fresh-kill |website=Asian American International Film Festival |access-date=14 June 2020}}

Critical response and legacy

{{Rquote |1=right |2= "Fresh Kill is described by Cheang herself as a work of eco-cybernoia. An environment in which the inability to access the media of change causes the uprising of low-fi activism and hacker mentality, or “hacktivism” if you will."|3=Jason Logan in InfoNation, November 1995}}

In a review for The Los Angeles Times, critic Kevin Thomas offered praise for Cheang's direction and Hagedorn's writing, noting that the film's "interaction of a deteriorating environment, burgeoning cyberspace and mounting urban paranoia [...] create a vividly contemporary background" for a "gentle lesbian love story." The Quad Cinema, where the film had its U.S. premiere, called Fresh Kill "an underseen radical feminist gem" and favorably compared it to Brazil and Born in Flames. Conversely, Janet Maslin of The New York Times offered praise for the film's soundtrack but described Fresh Kill as "aimless, arty self-indulgence carried to a remarkable extreme," while Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club surmised that the film was "too confused and disjointed to be anything but a well-intentioned, intermittently interesting failure."{{cite web |last1=Rabin |first1=Nathan |authorlink1=Nathan Rabin |title=Fresh Kill |url=https://www.avclub.com/fresh-kill-1798195274 |website=The A.V. Club |access-date=17 June 2020 |date=29 March 2002}}

The film is noted for its themes of solidarity by marginalized groups against racism and sexism; its condemnation of transnational capitalism; and its depiction of how "resistance circulates through networks originally designed to facilitate the exchange of labor, commodities, and capital." In her analysis of Fresh Kill, Gina Marchetti notes how the film depicts "the emancipatory potential of the digital," offering "hope for seizing the means of communication by reflecting on its own production and providing an image of radical media empowerment to inspire others." The film is noted for its influence on hacker subculture, with a 1995 article about the film for the now-defunct hacker publication InfoNation containing one of the first uses of the term "hacktivism".

References

{{reflist|refs=

{{cite web |last1=Chua |first1=Lawrence |title=Shu Lea Cheang |url=https://bombmagazine.org/articles/shu-lea-cheang/ |website=BOMB |access-date=14 June 2020 |date=1 January 1996}}

{{cite web |title=Fresh Kill |url=http://carrollfletcheronscreen.com/2015/12/09/fresh-kill/ |website=Carroll / Fletcher Onscreen |date=9 December 2015 |publisher=Carroll / Fletcher Gallery |access-date=14 June 2020}}

{{cite news |last1=Maslin |first1=Janet |authorlink1=Janet Maslin |title=Film Review; Radioactive Fish Lips In a Junk-Filled World|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/12/movies/film-review-radioactive-fish-lips-in-a-junk-filled-world.html |work=The New York Times|date=12 January 1996 |access-date=17 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150526163021/https://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/12/movies/film-review-radioactive-fish-lips-in-a-junk-filled-world.html |archive-date=26 May 2015}}

{{cite web |title=Taiwanese net pioneer Shu Lea Cheang to greet NYC cinephiles |url=https://www.moc.gov.tw/en/information_317_100720.html |website=Taiwan Ministry of Culture |access-date=14 June 2020 |date=25 July 2019}}

{{cite web |last1=Thomas |first1=Kevin |title=Vital 'Fresh Kill' Dissects Life's Absurdities |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-04-19-ca-60396-story.html |website=The Los Angeles Times |access-date=14 June 2020 |date=19 April 1996}}

{{cite web |title=Fresh Kill |url=https://quadcinema.com/film/fresh-kill/ |website=Quad Cinema |access-date=14 June 2020 |date=4 November 2019}}

{{cite web |title=Fresh Kill |url=http://www.vdb.org/titles/fresh-kill |website=Video Data Bank |access-date=14 June 2020}}

{{cite web |last1=Logan |first1=Jason |title=Take the Skinheads Bowling |url=http://info-nation.com/skinhead.html |website=InfoNation |access-date=14 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19970207061623/http://info-nation.com/skinhead.html |archive-date=7 February 1997}}

{{cite journal |last1=Pandey |first1=Sheo Nandan |title=Hacktivism of Chinese Characteristics and the Google Inc. Cyber Attack Episode |journal=Institute for Strategic, Political, Security and Economic Consultancy |date=2010 |page=1 |url=https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/113440/Hacktivism_Pandey_Mar10.pdf |access-date=13 July 2020}}

{{cite journal |last1=Webber |first1=Craig |last2=Yip |first2=Michael |title=The Rise of Chinese Cyber Warriors: Towards a Theoretical Model of Online Hacktivism |journal=International Journal of Cyber Criminology |date=June 2018 |volume=12 |issue=1 |page=230 |url=https://www.cybercrimejournal.com/Webber%26YipVol12Issue1IJCC2018.pdf |access-date=2020-07-13 |archive-date=2022-06-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220621062324/http://www.cybercrimejournal.com/Webber%26YipVol12Issue1IJCC2018.pdf |url-status=dead }}

{{cite journal |last1=Pinard |first1=Maxime |title=L'hacktivisme dans le cyberespace: quelles réalité? |journal=Revue internationale et stratégique |date=March 2012 |volume=87 |issue=3 |page=93 |doi=10.3917/ris.087.0093 |url=https://www.cairn.info/revue-internationale-et-strategique-2012-3-page-93.htm# |language=French |access-date=13 July 2020}}

}}