This week is shaping up to be a big one, with the Venice Film Festival gearing up to premiere a slew of new films. Among these releases is Harmony Korine’s highly experimental 80-minute film, AGGRO DR1FT. 

Taking place in the world of Miami’s criminal underworld, Jordi Mollá plays a hitman searching for his next target. With a guest appearance by Travis Scott and music done by AraabMuzik, the film is described as hallucinatory by some, with the Hollywood Reporter stating that Korine doesn’t even consider it a movie. 

The entire film is shot in infrared and is considered highly experimental. As Variety states, Korine even went as far as to show this in the press conference for the movie, ahead of its festival premiere. Korine, alongside VFX artist Joao Rosa and Eric Kohn, newly appointed head of film strategy at EDGLRD, sported a horned mask inspired by the movie, each with different colors. Korine leaned into the play even further with a fake cigar, going as far as to mime taking puffs on it through the conference. 

At the conference, Korine spoke about the company distributing the film, the newly formed EDGLRD (pronounced “edge lord.”), and how they’re, “trying to create a tech now…getting very close. It’s called a Dream Box.” 

“We’re developing something that gives you the ability to just think and then have it come out in images with no prompts. Just thought to image. So basically a dream description, a dream illustrator. We have a proof of concept, we’ve been working on this for a while and it’s really close. Pretty amazing.”

When the Hollywood Reporter sat down with Korine about the film, one of their questions dealt with his inspiration. “A couple of years ago, I was starting to feel differently about movies and experiences — asking myself, what is a movie? — and I started to become less and less interested in standard films and entertainment. So, we kind of worked for a while to try to develop something that I had been chasing but wasn’t able to really articulate.”

The movie is stated to have an almost video game-like feel, and when asked, Korine said that much of his time was taken over by the sort of transgressive world-building found in games like Elden Ring and GTA. 

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