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Terrence Nance: AN OVERSIMPLIFICATION OF HER BEAUTY (2012)--ND/NF
"Terence Nance is a romantic. . . Every word and every frame contained within this charming cinematic ode furthers that impression, ultimately saying less about the real-world object of Nance's affection, Namik Minter, than it does about its quixotic author, still naive enough to think making a film about his feelings can sway hers. While Minter remains resolutely unavailable, hip auds are likely to fall for this endearing love poem . . . Still, as the work of one young man bursting with inspiration, the film is a giddy thing to absorb, allowing complete strangers to witness someone performing open-heart surgery on himself. The animated sequences are especially impressive, storyboarded by Nance and handed over to others for a range of different visual styles."--VARIETY. The film by this young African American artist, musician, and filmmaker debuted at Sundance and was shown at Rotterdam. This is not just a love poem, but an analysis of emotional memory. Nance is from Dallas, studied in Boston, New York, and Cape Town, and has lived in Paris. He now lives in Brooklyn. This really is a new director, new film. From a promising filmmaker who might be the next Spike Lee.
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Roschdy Zem: OMAR KILLED ME (2011)--ND/NF
Famous Arab-French actor Roschdy Zem's directorial debut is a true story about the rush to convict and jail Omar Raddad, a Moroccan immigrant who worked as a gardener for a wealthy widow in the south of France. She was brutally murdered and the words "Omar killed me" were scrawled on a door near her body in her blood. This was used to convict Raddad without forensic evidence, fingerprints, or clear motive, and despite defense by the famous lawyer Maitre Verges. Sami Boujila is excellent as Raddad and the film is good, but not a complete success due in part to the incomplete nature of the story.
Omar m'a tuer (85min.) is included in the 2012 MoMA-Lincoln Center New Directors/New Films series shown as follows:
Saturday, March 24th 2012 | 6:45 PM | FSLC
Sunday, March 25th 2012 | 7:30 PM | MoMA
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Adam Leon: GIMME THE LOOT (2012)--ND/NF
A girl and boy graffiti artist duo roams New York in the summertime trying to raise money for a major coup: "bombing" the giant apple that jumps up when scores happen at Mets games. Natural riffs do not make up for a lack of compelling action in this feature film debut. Sweet but a little thin.
New Directors/New Films public screenings:
Friday, March 23rd 2012 | 6:30 PM | FSLC
Sunday, March 25th 2012 | 2:30 PM | MoMA
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Excellence. Thanks for these.
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Thanks for following. All interesting stuff and some will turn up at more festivals or awards or cinemas and be new directors worth watching.
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Thurs. Mar. 8, 2012 ND/NF press screenings:
10:00AM – 11:13AM – MOMA
CRULIC: THE PATH TO BEYOND (2011) 73min
Director: Anca Damian
Country: Romania
When Claudiu Crulic, a young Romanian in Poland, is arrested for a crime he
didn’t commit, he becomes a pawn in a Kafkaesque miscarriage of justice and
goes on a hunger strike to protest his treatment in jail. Filmmaker Anca Damian’s
documentary is by turns chilling and heartbreaking, but also ironic, with a bit of
black humor thrown in for good measure. What makes her extraordinary
documentary even more compelling is its strong visual style: Damian uses hand
drawn, cutout and collage animation techniques to create a strikingly memorable
film.
11:30AM – 12:50PM – MOMA
HEMEL (2012) 80min
Director: Sacha Polak
Country: The Netherlands/Spain
Sacha Polak’s HEMEL features Hannah Hoekstra as a strong-willed,
complicated, and vulnerable heroine who longs (perhaps too much) to connect
with her elusive father and ultimately find herself. The film is a powerful
investigation of a sexually-empowered woman and her search for physical and
intellectual intimacy.
1:15PM – 3:10PM – MOMA
THE MINISTER (L’exercice de l’État) (2011) 115min
Director: Pierre Schöller
Country: France
Pierre Schöller’s political thriller focuses on a cabinet minister (Olivier Gourmet)
in charge of national transportation who believes himself to be a man of the
people. He wants both to be and do good, but in order to get anything done he
must, given the exigencies of compromise, cajole, bend and even betray.
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Anca Damian: CRULIC: THE PATH TO BEYOND (2011)--ND/NF
True story of a Romanian arrested in Poland who fasted to the death in prison, told in animation. The tragedy of an ordinary man. That the authorities allowed the man to die was a scandal that caused a cabinet minister to resign.
Scheduled for these screenings at New Directors/New Films:
Friday, March 23rd | 6:30 PM | MoMA
Saturday, March 24th | 2:00 PM | FSLC
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Sacha Polak: HEMEL (2011)--ND/NF
The obstreperous, spoiled young Dutch woman who explores life through sexual adventures may be annoying, but the director's first feature and the young actress show progress and the film has a beautiful, elegant look. From the Netherlands, this debuted at Rotterdam and was also shown at the Berlinale.
New Directors/New Films public screening schedule:
Friday, March 23rd | 9 PM | FSLC
Sunday, March 25th | 5 PM | MoMA
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Pierre Schöller: THE MINISTER (2011)--ND/NF
An exciting and smart film about of the inner workings of national politics from France. The focus is on a new Minister of Transport who is from the people -- played by the powerful Olivier Gourmet, well known from the Dardennes films. He got the Best Actor award at Cannes for The Son. His PPS, Principal Private Secretary, who gets things done and moniters everything from within, played by the skillful and polished Michel Blanc, is an insider, a political aristocrat. Several studding sequences show the minister's stress levels and his attempt to connect with people, while he must compromise his principles in the end. I saw this when it opened in Paris October 27, but have written a new review after this second viewing.
New Directors/New Films public screenings:
Friday, March 23rd | 9 PM | MoMA
Sunday, March 25th | 1:30 PM | FSLC
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Pablo Giorgelli: LAS ACACIAS (2011_--ND/NF
This low-keyed minimalist first feature by Argentine writer and documentarian Giorgelli was too thin for me, but others feel differently. It won the Caméra d'Or prize for best debut film at Cannes last May. Certainly the performances by Germane de Silva as the grizzled, lonely truck driver and Hebe Duarte as the Paraguayan mamma with babe in arms who rides down with him to Buenas Aires are well modulated and pitch perfect. Unfortunately the modulation is from tepid to lukewarm.
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Lee Kwang-kuk: ROMANCE JOE (2011)--ND/NF
A rather formidably intricate and hard to keep straight set of three interconnected story lines that constitute a meta-fictional comment on narrative doesn't keep this film about filmmakers and drinking and suicide from being lively and vivid. Lee shows his debt to his master Hong Sang-soo (he was first assistant director for Hong for the latter's last four films or so) but he nonetheless has his own distinctive viewpoint and may have taken things further where Hong has been reaching a dead end. This won the audience award at its debut at Pusan, suggesting Lee knows how to reach the local public. It's Lee's feature debut. It also was in the Tiger competition at Rotterdam.
New Directors/New Films public screenings of Romance Joe:
Saturday, March 24th | 6:15 PM | MoMA
Monday, March 26th | 8:30 PM | FSLC
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Joann Sfar, Antoine Delesvaux: THE RABBI'S CAT (2011)--ND/NF
This delightful-to-look-at and initially very charming story comes from a popular comic strip in France. It concerns a rabbi and a talking cat and their adventures in 1920's Algiers, plus a trip across Africa with a Russian war vet, a guy escaped from a pogrom, and an ancient Citroën. It all gets a little too complicated and doesn't really go anywhere, but this got reaves in France, and will please fans of foreign animation anywhere. It won two top animated feature awards in France too, at Annecy and the 2012 Césars. I was a bit disappointed. This outshines the Spanish/Cuban jazz animation Chico & Rita in the visuals, but falls behind in the narrative area.
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Kleber Mendoça Filho: NEIGHBORING SOUNDS (2011)--ND/NF]
This is another incisive and original Latin American film about class tensions. It reminded me of Celina Murga's A Week Alone, but is quite different in its focus on a oceanside (Recife) Brazilian urban center or posh highrise apartment towers where tensions and resentments boil. Winner of the FIPRESCI Award at Rotterdam this January, it's been picked up by Cinema Guild for US distribution.
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David France: HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE (2012)--ND/NF
The material may seem familiar, but it's better organized, clearer, more passionate and with the follow-up of a sequel that takes the battle for AIDS treatment and survival to a further level. The filmmaker has followed the story all along, and makes use of extensive footage from ACT-UP. A kep aspect is the splitting off of TAG from ACT-UP, the Treatment Action Group that pursued contacts with government and medical organizations to have direct influence on medications and research. Debuted at Sundance, this will be distributed by IFC affiliate Sundance Selects.
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Júlia Murat: FOUND MEMORIES (2011)--ND/NF
From Brazil, this first feature blends documentary and magical realism elements in a visual poem about old age and photography set in a remote village that time forgot.
