USA / 2015 / 72mins / Drama / English

Eleven-year-old tomboy Toni (a showstopping Royalty Hightower) is bewitched by the tight-knit dance team she sees practicing in the same Cincinnati gymnasium where she boxes. Enamored by the power and confidence of the strong community of girls, Toni spends less and less time boxing with her older brother, and instead eagerly absorbs the dance routines and masters drills from a distance, and even pierces her own ears in an effort to fit in. But when a mysterious outbreak of fainting spells plagues the team, Toni’s desire for acceptance becomes more complicated. Gorgeously shot and with a mesmerizing score, The Fits is a transformative experience and a marvelous portrait of adolescence.

Anna Rose Holmer

Anna Rose Holmer, director, writer and producer, was listed as one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film 2015.” Her narrative directorial debut, The Fits (Venice International Film Festival 2015), is a selection of the Venice Biennale College 2014/2015 and the Sundance Institute Editing Intensive Fellowship. She recently produced Jody Lee Lipes’s Ballet 422 (Tribeca Film Festival 2014, Magnolia Pictures) and Mike Plunkett’s Salero (IDFA 2015). With filmmaker Matt Wolf, Anna co-directed and produced A Ballet in Sneakers: Jerome Robbins and Opus Jazz, a companion documentary to NY Export: Opus Jazz, (SXSW 2010 Emerging Visions Audience Award) which aired on the PBS Great Performances/Dance in America Series. Anna’s first documentary feature, Twelve Ways to Sunday, was one of ten films to participate in IFP’s 2009 Documentary Filmmaker Lab and premiered with Rooftop Films in 2010. Learn More