2023 Madelyn’s Choice Award Winner
What if you could rewrite your adolescence? In this high school reunion movie turned inside out, filmmaker Cecilia Aldarondo embarks on a fantastical quest to reconcile her tortured teen years. She ‘goes back’ in more ways than one, tracking down old foes and friends alike, and re-staging her most primal humiliations while casting herself as a teenager.
In a cathartic, time-bending process of letting go, Cecilia is forced to confront the flawed memories she’s held onto for years. Oscillating between present and past, hallucination and reality, YOU WERE MY FIRST BOYFRIEND is a hybrid documentary that explores the power of adolescent fantasy, the subtle violence of cultural assimilation, and the funhouse mirror of time’s passage. Perhaps we will all learn something about growing older and making peace with the things that haunt us.
*Available in-person only.
