The Fits

August 10, 2016 · Scruffy City Hall · 8:00 p.m.

Toni trains as a boxer with her brother at a community center in Cincinnati’s West End, but becomes fascinated by the dance team that also practices there. Enamored by their strength and confidence, Toni eventually joins the group, eagerly absorbing routines, mastering drills, and even piercing her own ears to fit in. As she discovers the joys of dance and of female camaraderie, she grapples with her individual identity amid her newly defined social sphere.

Shortly after Toni joins the team, the captain faints during practice. By the end of the week, most of the girls on the team suffer from episodes of fainting, swooning, moaning, and shaking in a seemingly uncontrollable catharsis. Soon, however, the girls on the team embrace these mysterious spasms, transforming them into a rite of passage. Toni fears “the fits” but is equally afraid of losing her place just as she’s found her footing. Caught between her need for control and her desire for acceptance, Toni must decide how far she will go to embody her new ideals.

“The miracle of the movie is that, like Toni, it transcends blunt, reductive categorization partly because it’s free of political sloganeering, finger wagging and force-fed lessons. Any uplift that you may feel won’t come from having your ideas affirmed, but from something ineluctable — call it art.” — The New York Times

“Holmer turns this coming-of-age movie into a dreamy, dread-inducing portrait of a young woman in full self-discovery mode, with woozy dollops of magical realism and next-level spiritual transcendence mixing it up with mesmerizing drill routines.” — Rolling Stone

About the Filmmaker

Anna Rose Holmer was listed as one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film 2015.” She recently produced Jody Lee Lipes’s Ballet 422 and Mike Plunkett’s Salero.