![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dactylfoundation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/101118_El+Monte_1-150x136.jpg\" "\\"101118_El+Monte_1\\"")
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November 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n In her new film\u00a0El Monte<\/em>, Yelena Yemchuk\u2019s crisp black-and-white rendering of a feverish dream is reminiscent of Fellini\u2019s\u00a08\u00bd<\/em>, even using a breathless soundtrack in homage to the opening of the Italian director\u2019s autobiographical masterpiece. An elegant, if unsettling, platform to showcase a festival of vintage gowns,\u00a0El Monte<\/em> features supermodel\u00a0Natasa Vojnovic<\/a>, who gives\u00a0an accomplished and poetic performance,\u00a0actor Ebon Moss-Bachrach, musician Melissa Auf der Maur and the haunting voice of Elisa Silver. Filmed at\u00a0Dactyl Foundation for the Arts<\/a> in New York, with mid-century furniture on loan from Chelsea\u2019s Demisch Danant\u00a0gallery, the set designed by Ukraine-born Yemchuk could easily be mistaken for a location featured in\u00a0La Dolce Vita<\/em> or\u00a0Juliet of the Spirits<\/em>. Long before the photographer was shooting fashion editorials for Italian\u00a0Vogue<\/em>,\u00a0V<\/em>,\u00a0i-D<\/em> andThe New Yorker<\/em>, as well as ad campaigns for\u00a0Kenzo<\/a>, Vera Wang and Dries Van Noten, and videos for Smashing Pumpkins (the grunge band led by one-time boyfriend Billy Corgan) she was a young photography student at Art Center in Pasadena, California. It was there that a professor compared her work with that of\u00a0Il Maestro<\/em>, leaving the 21-year-old flattered, but a little mortified. \u201cI said, \u2018thank you,\u2019 but was totally embarrassed,\u201d she says, \u201cbecause I had never seen a Fellini movie at the time!\u201d She of course promptly ran home to correct this oversight. \u201cOnce I discovered Fellini, and then Tarkovsky and David Lynch, these people were in my head and they\u2019re super-influential to me still. —Nowness<\/a><\/p>\n