Describing Zia Anger’s My First Film is a bit hard, partly because it’s a metafictional fourth-wall demolition. In revisiting the filmmaking process behind her first film Always, All Ways, Anne Marie, Anger folds in scenes of the past, present, and hypothetical into each other like kneading alternate worlds into this universe. If you come into the movie without knowing about it, a second watch might be warranted (complimentary). But if you watch the film like it’s a scavenger hunt for each scene’s intention and timeline, you might miss out on the bigger picture.

But I’m being a little dramatic, as the movie is still logical enough to follow. My First Film shares Anger’s hurdles into making a film: the process, production, and distribution (i.e. getting accepted in festivals). The film opens with a self-aware disclaimer that wouldn’t fit in most contexts, in which Anger strings short videos of her doing silly things that could fall under acting exercises or inside jokes. We also see typing on the screen, which is a throwback to her 2018 visual performance where she annotated the making of Always… on a computer screen in front of different audiences across the country. These videos aren’t related to the story; Anger types that she wants to share “joy” (quotes included) before getting to the film’s harrowing subject (in an interview, Anger mentions that in making the first film so serious, she removed the “most important part” of her: her humor).

The first part of the film traces a documentary-like introduction of Anger’s life in so many words: returning to Ithaca, integrating her parents into her work, and getting down to business about how Always… went down. Anger is then transposed onto the character of Vita (Odessa Young), a 23-year-old who wants to make a film about her life. Her friends make up the above/below-the-line players, and the star/her proxy is Dina (Devon Ross), who shares some of Vita’s life tales, like ex-boyfriends and ailing fathers. At times, especially when the film goes off the reality rails, Dina and Vita hold conversations like reflections of the same person or variants sharing consequences of their choices. The uncanny resemblance is most likely purposefully disorienting, especially when Anger gets on the screen.

Personal problems sprout into the mix in both small and big consequences, though the hindsight narrative gives it a wry levity (Vita admits to taking a lot of Adderall during filming, which might be why she can’t remember the sound guy’s name). Vita’s worried about her father, carefree boyfriend, and the movie — sometimes all at once, sometimes one issue to balance at a time. Another layer to consider is that Always… is a semi-autobiographical period of Vita’s life when she faces an unexpected pregnancy. Sometimes it’s Anger using Vita using Dina to assess the emotion and experience at that time. Sometimes you have to lend trust in varying amounts, even though I can tell modern-day Anger is beholden to the truth as much as she can.

As personal as My First Film is, it also spreads into the sweat, trust, and occasional mind-reading required into making a film. On days ending in “y,” I think of Cord Jefferson’s Oscars acceptance speech (“I understand that this is a risk-averse industry, but $200 million movies are also a risk”), and while this film may not fit a mass-market appeal to justify a smaller budget, Anger certainly make a wonder out of what she’s got. The film is fearless in its storytelling and genre-blurring of exposition, history, comedy, and dread. And if I squint hard enough, I almost see a middle finger in being able to execute a multiverse with poetic motion.

“Ready or not, willing or not, we must come to comprehend the full responsibility of the world we’ve now created,” Vita shares in a quiet confidence when it seems like Always… might not reach completion. Like the visual performance, the frustration and regrets into making a film are in plain sight here. Vita isn’t poised to be the champion at the end, but the film baring its vulnerability has such a contemporary directness that we feel that Vita is also here today, healing. Unfinished projects and our presentation towards others might have been Anger’s cruces, but in making a movie like My First Film, this year’s certain onion-oddity, honesty feels like karmic goodness.

Streaming on Mubi Friday, 9/6