NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS 2020 (April 28-May 9, 2021)

[Chris Knipp]

ROCK BOTTOM RISER (Fern Silva 2021)

A short but rich experimental documentary about Hawaii that is both passionate and witty. He is particularly interested in the controversial Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) threatening sacred indigenous land but he ranges wide. He is a FSC-Harvard fellow with degrees from MassArt and Bard who teaches at Bennington.

[Chris Knipp]

NATÁLIA MAZARIM IN MADALENA

Preview of ND/NF film from Brazil, Madiano Marcheti's 'Madalena':

From Film at Lincoln Center:

In this hauntingly oblique yet vivid moral drama, set in a rural Brazilian town, three characters’ lives are affected in different ways by the death of Madalena, a local trans woman whose body is found in one of the vast soybean fields that stretch across the region. For cisgender Luziane (Natália Mazarim) and Cristiano (Rafael de Bona), a bar hostess and a wealthy soy farm scion, respectively, her death occasions vastly different kinds of rupture, while for Bianca (Pâmella Yule), a trans woman and friend of the deceased, it is a more tragically matter-of-fact instance of increasing violence perpetrated on their community. Director Madiano Marcheti’s almost sidelong approach—with Madalena providing the film’s structuring absence—is a provocative challenge to conventional narrative and a rebuke to formulaic depictions of trauma.

Playing on May 1 at 9pm and May 9 at 12:30pm at Film at Lincoln Center.

Playing virtually nationwide from 5/2 - 5/7 in our Virtual Cinema!

[Chris Knipp]

MADALENA (Madiano Marcheti 2021)

Crabwise followup of three people differently connected to a murdered trans woman found in a soya field in Brazil's Centro Oeste region, an assured and memorable feature debut.