Development

The Fits was funded through grants from the Venice Biennale College-Cinema initiative,^[4] which supports "teams of directors and producers to make their first or second micro-budget audio-visual work".^[5] For a year before submitting an application, Director Anna Rose Holmer, alongside her co-writer and producer, Lisa Kjerulff, and editor and co-writer, Saela Davis, developed a Tumblr with ideas for the film. They submitted the Tumblr alongside an outline and pitch statement when the call for open submissions came.^[6] Their pitch was awarded a €150,000 grant which funded the 11-month production period until the film premiered at the 2015 Venice Film Festival.^[4]

While developing the script, Holmer was inspired by real-life stories of communities succumbing to fits of hysteria.^[7] She first became interested in historic cases of mass psychogenic illness and conversion disorder while producing Ballet 422 (2014).^[8] Examples of outbreaks of seizure-like attacks and uncontrollable spasms date back to the Middle Ages, but there are still cases of this occurring today. In 2007, a group of high school girls in Virginia suffered from "twitching arms and legs" that eventually resolved itself.^[9] Holmer's research into this subject, specifically cases like the dancing plague of 1518, and the pattern of these fits emerging amongst young women inspired her to explore the nature of this subject in a coming of age dance-film.^[7]

Pre-production

After developing the first draft of the script, they began looking at dance teams. Holmer discovered the Cincinnati-based Q Kidz Dance Team on YouTube while she was still working on her pitch for the Venice Biennale College's program.^[10] Upon finding the Q Kidz, the writers adapted the story with them and their dance form in mind.^[11] After receiving, Holmer relocated to Cincinnati and began working with Q Kidz's coach, Marquicia Jones-Wood, and hired her as a producer on the project.^[10] Forty-five out of several hundred Q Kidz dancers were cast for the film. The boxers were also all real Junior Olympic level boxers. Holmer tried to involve the kids in the film as much as possible, collaborating with them on writing their own dialogue. Additionally, they workshopped for 6 weeks before production began.^[11]

After casting the Q Kidz, they opened up casting for the lead amongst them. Royalty Hightower, who was 9-years-old at the beginning of the process and had already been dancing with the Q Kidz for 3 years, was cast as Toni. Holmer commented that Hightower had "this amazing power of listening and observing...she was really in tune with her body, in a way that is necessary to play Toni."^[12] Hightower worked in depth with movement consultant Celia Rowlson-Hall to appear bad at dancing in the beginning of the film.^[13] Rowlson-Hall also choreographed all of the fits with each girl individually. They were developed in isolation so that the rest of cast only saw the performance on the day that it was filmed in order to create a unique and impactful moment for each girl.^[8] Two of the Q Kidz dance captains, Mariah and Chariah Jones, helped to choreograph the film's dance battles and drill choreography as well as incorporating in boxing moves for Toni's character.^[13]

Filming

Saela Davis and Lisa Kjerulff, the film's co-writers, served other key positions in the film's crew, with Davis as an editor and Kjerulff as a producer.^[14] Of the film, Holmer said, “This had the most female department heads and most gender-balanced crew that I’ve ever worked with, and that came directly from the three of us being the key decision-makers and hirers. The dynamic was pushed even further because we had a cast of 45 teenage girls; I think it was important for them to see women — and lots of diverse women — in positions of power on set”.^[14]

Critical response

The Fits was widely acclaimed by critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 96%, based on 110 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads, "As gripping as it is unique, the thrillingly kinetic The Fits marks debuting writer-director Anna Rose Holmer as a singular talent."^[15] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 90 out of 100, based on 24 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".^[16] David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter called it a "small-scale but captivating first feature".^[17] Similarly a critic for Variety called it as a "promising debut feature" and all praised it for its "meticulous mood of psychological isolation and beguiling mystery."^[18]

Accolades