He made his first feature for a studio, lost control of it, and hated the result so much he spent years telling people not to watch it. "I'm asking you, as my friend, don't rent it, don't try to see it."

Todd Solondz left the business - or as he has put it, it left him - and took a job teaching English to Russian immigrants in New York.

Six years later, a lawyer friend offered to help fund whatever he wanted to make. He made WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE (1995), the most merciless film ever made about being twelve.

Dawn Wiener is a seventh grader in New Jersey. Her classmates torment her, her mother prefers her little sister, her father barely registers her.

What makes it great is that the film will not let her be lovable. Dawn is awkward, sullen, and sometimes cruel herself, and Solondz refuses to pretend otherwise. The character was later featured (with different actresses and alternating timelines) in his subsequent films Palindromes (2004) and Wiener-Dog (2016).

Welcome to the Dollhouse won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1996.

(TIL that Heather Matarazzo is married to Heather Turman, and that Gaten Matarazzo's mother is also named Heather. Which reminds me, I really need to do a post on Heathers.)