Revisiting Her Teen Years – ‘You Were My First Boyfriend’ Doc Trailer
by Alex Billington
October 25, 2023
Source: YouTube
“The paradox of going back [in time] is to have to succumb, once again, to that sense of yourself as totally inconsequential. So why on earth would I go back?” HBO has unveiled an official trailer for a documentary film titled You Were My First Boyfriend, directed and produced by Cecilia Aldarondo (“Memories of a Penitent Heart”, “Landfall”) and co-directed by Sarah Enid Hagey. This premiered at the 2023 SXSW Film Festival this year, and it will be out to watch on HBO / Max streaming soon this November. “What if you could rewrite your adolescence?” is the predominant thought. You Were My First Boyfriend is a hybrid doc film that embarks on a fantastical quest to reconcile one woman’s tortured teen years by revisiting her most formative and cringeworthy experiences. As she describes in this trailer, it’s an attempt at an “exorcism” of the horrors of her time growing up, and the memories that still haunt her. I do find this all a bit strange, but I’m intrigued by the filmmaking as a way of dealing with all of this! Might be a great discovery – take a look.
Here’s the trailer (+ poster) for Cecilia Aldarondo’s doc You Were My First Boyfriend, from YouTube:
“What if you could rewrite your adolescence?” In this high school reunion movie turned inside out, the director embarks on a fantastical quest to reconcile her tortured teen years. She revisits some of her most formative – and at times cringeworthy – childhood experiences, tracking down old crushes & reenacting visceral memories of youthful humiliation and desire, at times playing the role of her younger self and casting teenagers to play the kids in her life who still haunt her. Oscillating between present & past, humor & heartbreak, You Were My First Boyfriend is a hybrid documentary that takes seriously the power of adolescence and the way time impacts memories, exploring what it means to grow up and make peace with the drama of our teenage trauma. You Were My First Boyfriend is co-directed by the up-and-coming filmmakers Cecilia Aldarondo (director of the two doc films Memories of a Penitent Heart and Landfall previously) & Sarah Enid Hagey (making her feature directorial debut). Produced by Cecilia Aldarondo and Ines Hofmann Kanna. This initially premiered at the 2023 SXSW Film Festival earlier this year. HBO will debut You Were My First Boyfriend streaming on Max starting on November 8th, 2023. Interested?
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