@2026 by mezzanine film, inc.
THE DELLS
directed by Nellie Kluz
2024, U.S., 72m, DCP
West Coast premiere followed by a conversation with director Nellie Kluz
Presented with MEMORY.
Wednesday, April 29
2220 Arts + Archives
2220 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90057
doors/bar: 7:30pm
films: 8:00pm
The first feature by nonfiction filmmaker Nellie Kluz is a beautifully observed vérité portrait of tourism and labor in the American Midwest, seen through the lives of international students in Wisconsin Dells – the self-described “Waterpark Capital of the World”. Each summer, groups of students travel abroad to the Dells for a State Department visa program that promises an immersion into American society and culture; yet working minimum-wage jobs exposes them to the wealth gap, American kitsch, and other day-to-day realities of making ends meet in a major tourist hub. Taking a roving perspective among dozens of subjects, The Dells is a soberly funny snapshot of a young generation full of optimism in spite of a precarious reality.
A MEMORY release. Special thanks to Riel Roch-Decter.
“[Kluz depicts] a counter-intuitively funny ensemble of people (not least the filmmaker) finding humor in a default hopeless place.” -Vadim Rizov, Filmmaker Magazine
Official Selection: 2024 Visions du Réel, New/Next Film Festival