HONEY BOY

Otis Lort is a successful Hollywood actor when he has to enter a rehab clinic after a drink-driving accident. In therapy he returns to his childhood: as a twelve-year-old (Noah Jupe), Otis makes television series and lives with his father (Shia LaBeouf) in a motel on the edge of Los Angeles. His father, a former rodeo clown with a criminal record, is at once manager, minder and the greatest danger in the boy’s life. The adult Otis (Lucas Hedges) must come to understand what those years made of him. “Honey Boy” (USA, 2019) by Alma Har’el is based on the childhood of Shia LaBeouf, who wrote the screenplay during his own therapy and plays his father himself.

Har’el, who comes from documentary filmmaking, interweaves both timelines into a narrative about abuse, dependency and the attempt to make peace with his own father through cinema. At its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival 2019, the film won the Special Jury Award for Vision and Craft in the US Dramatic Competition. “Honey Boy” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2019.

Shown at the 2019 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2019 · Film Archive