Harmony Korine Says Film Is Losing Fresh Talent to Livestreaming: ‘IShowSpeed Is the New Tarkovsky’

Director Harmony Korine took a moment at the Venice Film Festival press conference for his latest film “Baby Invasion” to encourage Hollywood to start embracing the forms of entertainment that have taken over youth culture, like gaming and streaming.

“What’s happening in Hollywood — and you’re starting to see Hollywood, I think, crumble creatively — is that they’re losing a lot of the most talented and creative minds to gaming and to streamers. Like IShowSpeed is a movie, Kai Cenat is a movie,” said the “Spring Breakers” and “Aggro Dr1ft” filmmaker, shouting out two of the most popular personalities on YouTube and Twitch.

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In making a point about how Hollywood power players are locked into convention to the point of scaring off young creative minds from attempting traditional filmmaking, Korine went on to say, “They go other places because movies are no longer the dominant art form. Always, they were the dominant art form, but nothing is linear anymore. And so they’re going to start to lose all the talent to all these other places, and film is going to — not all film, but a lot of film — stagnate with just huge IP, or just this kind of very rarefied experience. But IShowSpeed is the new Tarkovsky.”

“Baby Invasion” is Korine’s second film produced by his multimedia design collective EDGLRD. Inspired by the first-person shooter video games, the film centers on a group of mercenaries with baby face avatars racing to rob mansions of the rich and powerful. “The concept really comes from this moment, this idea that people will, in the future or even now, start to livestream their crimes. And this is now entertainment in a lot of ways for people,” said the director.

Korine also revealed at the top of the press conference that the cut of “Baby Invasion” that will be screening at La Biennale is just a “base layer,” and that the full version will have three or four more films within it. “You’ll be able to scan QR codes with your phone, and it will take you to games and other perspectives from other shooters and players in the film. So really the film itself, the whole thing is probably maybe 80 hours of film.”

Ultimately, at this point in his career, Korine says that he believes “This idea of conventional films is ending. They’re still going to exist, but now something is ending, and something is being born. And so films, what we call films are changing, and it will be experiences, and how we’re able to experience them.” Previewing more of what’s to come from him and EDGLRD, Korine added, “We’re working on a horror movie right now that takes place in your bedroom and the characters are in your house… We’re building the technology [for that].”

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