Fantasy A Gets a Mattress


Fantasy A Gets a Mattress is a 2023 American independent comedy film written and directed by Noah Zoltan Sofian and David Norman Lewis and produced by Sofian, Lewis, and Safiye Rose Senturk. The film stars Fantasy A and is based loosely on his life and sections of his memoir, Life in the Eyes of an Autistic Person.

Plot

After coming home past curfew, Fantasy A gets kicked out of his group home for disabled adults. While searching for a new place to sleep, Fantasy A interacts with an ensemble cast of characters as he simultaneously seeks superstardom.

Cast

  • Fantasy A as Himself
  • Acacia Porter as Asia Rose
  • Logic Amen as Ramon
  • Aaron Billingsly as Zander
  • Ready Ron as Ed Jones
  • Keosha Lovely Fredricks as Lil Rude Puss
  • Chris Zapata as Glenn
  • Miles Stanberry as Male Model
  • Osato Cooley as Osato
  • Elizabeth Navarro as Annabelle
  • DoNormaal as Crystal
  • Louis Wilson as Louis the Bartender
  • Charles McKinney as Scabby
  • Tony Beck as Grady
  • Margaret Channon as Canvasser
  • Karen Wetterhahn as White Lady

Production

Fantasy A Gets a Mattress was filmed in numerous locations throughout Seattle. The filmmakers and most of the cast and crew members involved are also from Seattle. The core production team and Fantasy A all attended the same high school in Seattle.

Release and reception

Festivals

Fantasy A Gets a Mattress was selected to screen at the following film festivals:

Critical response

In Chase Hutchinson's review for The Seattle Times, he wrote, "the history of Seattle film has a new chapter that, while still being written, begins and ends with Fantasy A." Natalia Mesa, writing for High Country News, stated, "The interstitial back alleys, dark clubs, industrial zones and skate parks not only serve as low-budget locales, they also expose Seattle’s underbelly, which is rarely captured on film."
Brendan Kiley, reviewing the film for The Seattle Times's Pacific NW Magazine, wrote, “There is a part of us it wakes up—a part we’ve been yearning to have awoken.” Writing for The Stranger, culture critic Charles Mudede compared the film to Boots Riley's Sorry to Bother You, stating, "What do these works show? How surreal it is to live in a world where what is most unreal has the most reality."