In The Guy Who Got Cut Wrong, filmmaker Dana Ben-Ari takes audiences to a place of trauma and tenderness, touching on themes of body and identity, all through the lens of comedy and confession. Building on the type of intimacy we saw in her debut Breastmilk (2014), Ben-Ari’s latest short for The New Yorker traces the story of novelist Gary Shteyngart, whose botched circumcision becomes a prism through which audiences can explore a tale of cultural inheritance and masculinity. In The Guy Who Got Cut Wrong, Ben-Ari touches on something specific yet universal: how the stories written on our bodies can shape who we become, and how humor can sometimes be the gentlest form of healing.
In conversation with Awards Buzz’s Sari Cohen, Ben-Ari opens up about what draws her to stories that blur the line between the personal and the political. With characteristic candor and curiosity, Ben-Ari unpacks how Shteyngart’s wry resilience and her own perspective as a filmmaker combine to make The Guy Who Got Cut Wrong not just a documentary about one man’s scar, but a meditation on how we all carry the marks of our making.
Check it out!
