Suburbia Story is a short black and white experimental film that mixes performance art and painted images to create a surreal dream-like story set in an unrefined suburban Los Angeles neighborhood. By twisting references to familiar iconographic images from art, history and religion, the film’s tableaus create an unsettling, alternative mythology that reflects contemporary socio-political dynamics. It expresses a queer narrative about the expulsion and fall from grace, but that still invites audiences to interpret in their own personal way. 

The film is set inside the historic development of urbanization that created specific environmental conditions and have constructed complexities of cultural experience and class division. The border between film, theatre, performance, augmented reality, and painting are blurred as they flow through scenarios. Visual references to Byzantine Medieval Icons and native Slavic spiritual practices counterflow with pop culture references and neo-pagean symbolism. The lush, original score by composer Joseph Carrillo reflects this juxtaposed, cross-genre approach, with a soundtrack ranging from spaghetti Western one moment to liturgical lamentation the next. 

Act One features twin brothers wearing white museum gloves acting as curatorial assistants for the experience. They open the doors of a rusty, modern day cargo van, birthing a journey into mystical surrealism.  The Girl lies dying in the arms of The Witch, who agonizes over the loss. Act Two presents The Girl’s funeral ceremony, featuring painted imagery that places the action in another realm. Act Three reveals both main characters becoming “de-canonized” by the twins, and alluding to a new life for them as humans expelled from Eden. The ending is left mysterious and foreboding, provoking thought and reflective of the anxiety of our current era.

Suburbia Story is the first of a multi-episode experimental film omnibus, which explores characters in various incarnations and referencing different genres of art. The series is written and directed by Los Angeles visual artist and director Vojislav Radovanović.