Goodness knows what he’s been doing for the last decade and a half, but Whit Stillman, who made quite a name for himself making movies about Manhattan’s urban haute bourgeoisie in the late 80s and early 90s (Metropolitan, Barcelona and The Last Days Of Disco), before dropping off the radar, is plotting a return with Damsels In Distress.
While you’d think the fact his movies have influenced Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach might make it easier for Stillman to get his movies financed, several previous attempts to direct something have ended up in development hell. So this time he’s going ultra-low-budget, with the director telling Variety that Damsels In Distress is “about four stylish, perfume-obsessed college girls who revolutionise the social life at their grungy university. There are no names, but at our budget level it doesn’t have to be a name cast.
If this is a success, hopefully it’ll get some more traction on his long in-development Jamaican gospel drama, Dancing Mood, and see Stillman back in the directing chair more often, as at the moment he seems to be a talent that’s going to waste.