Retrospective
Dan Sallitt
The Unspeakable Act
By Dan Sallitt
90 min | 2012 | USA

17-year-old Jackie is in distress as her older brother Matthew gets his first girlfriend and prepares to leave for college. Living in an old Brooklyn house with their mother and another sister, the siblings have a symbiotic relationship, though Matthew does not share Jackie’s incestuous desire. After Matthew’s breakup, the two spend a last idyllic summer together. But Matthew’s college departure sends a depressed Jackie into therapy, in which she gradually becomes absorbed, and prompts her to experiment with other boys. When Matthew returns on vacation, a more confident Jackie makes a final bid to keep her childhood dream alive…

Screenplay: Dan Sallitt | Cinematography: Duraid Munajim | Editing: Dan Sallitt | Sound: David Groman | Producer: Shari Berman, Jaime Christley, Ania Trzebiatowska | With: Tallie Medel, Sky Hirschkron, Aundrea Fares, Kati Schwartz, Caroline Luft
Filmography

2019 Caterina (short) | 2019 Fourteen | 2012 The Unspeakable Act | 2004 All the Ships at Sea | 1998 Honeymoon | 1986 Polly Perverse Strikes Again!

Director

Sallitt was born on July 27, 1955 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He received a B.A. in Mathematics from Harvard College (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1972-1976) and an M.F.A in Screenwriting from UCLA (Los Angeles, California, 1976-1979). He was the head film critic for the Los Angeles Reader (from 1983 to 1985), and writes film criticism for The Chicago Reader, Slate and MUBI. He lives in New York City.

 

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