New Directors New Films for Free on Festival Scope

Taking place for the third consecutive year, New Directors New Films  on Festival Scope is presenting a selection of features and shorts from this year's edition of NDNF online for FREE (www.festivalscope.com).

As in past years this will give American audiences a chance to see some great films without a US distributor- which means this maybe your only chance to catch some great films (and trust me there are some great films here).

The Event is running today April 9 until the 22nd  But each film is has limited "seats"  of only 200 tickets and only for viewers in the US

They are running  4 features
- Azougue Nazare by Tiago Melo
- Drift by Helena Wittmann
- The Nothing Factory by Pedro Pinho
- Scary Mother by Ana Urushadze

and  6 short films:
- City of Tales by Arash Nassiri
- The Gaze by Garnoosh Samadi
- Copa-Loca by Christos Massalas
- Palenque by Sebastian Pinzon
- Rupture by Yassmina Karajah
- Möbius by Sam Kuhn

If you click on the any title with a link you will be taken to the Unseen Films review.  To watch any of the above films or for more details go to the New Directors New Films page at Festival Scope

Good Manners (2017) NDNF 2018 (spoilers)

Art house meets grindhouse in a film that will satisfy few except those who will believe the WTF turns.

Ana is hired by an expecting single mom to be a live in helper before the baby arrive and then a nanny after.  Things go along swimmingly until Ana begins behaving badly when the moon is full. That is nothing compared to what happens when the baby arrives.

Solid first hour is a really good, if slow, domestic drama of the life and budding romance between the two women. Sure there are hints at what is to come but it's kept largely low key, even if a cat meets a bad end. The film is a compelling drama where you care about the characters and want to see where it's going.

That all changes when the baby is born and the film morphs into  a not quite a horror film crossed with a not quite a Beauty and the Beast drama. Picks up seven years later when Ana is raising the now young boy. Here the film wobbles from pillar to post as it never quite manages to get the tone right. The needing to keep an eye on the boy and his diet, especially at times of the full moon never really works and I kept wanting to ask all sorts of questions about the whys and hows. Things completely fall off the table in the closing minutes when a mob with a modern take on flaming torches appears. I damn near fell on the floor from laughing.

While I know and appreciate what the film is striving to do I don't think the film achieves it. Part of the problem is the fact that this film is 135 minutes.  Its simply way too long. Because we get so much set up the split between now and seven years on makes the film play like two different films with the same casts. The shift is so radical that the film can't really handle the tonal shift.

Then again perhaps the film doesn't know what the tone is supposed to be- Horror? Drama? Fantasy? The first hour is most certainly a thriller but I'm not sure what the second is.

While I have all sorts of plot questions regarding the second half I'm going to focus on two upfront things that don't really help the film. The first is that Miguel Lobo as Joel, the wolf boy, is very uneven in the role. Yes there are times when he nails it, but some of the monster related stuff doesn't quite work, We can see him acting. Certainly he's game but either because of his ability or the editing I never bought it.

The other problem with the second half is in the creature design which is much to cute and cartoony to ever be believable. I chuckled every time I saw it. Frankly I could have accepted it in if Joel was more human and not so wolf like, but he's a wolf with a cute kids face stuck on it its just silly. Worse it doesn't really match up with the new born version we had seen earlier which had a larger snout.

I probably should also pick on the plotting in the second half which has all sorts of problems, not to mention angry townspeople storming with torches, but somehow I find that too easy a target. There are too many points that seem like they were lifted from other films. If they can be lazy in how it cobbled together the various bits from other better films then I can decide to be lazy and not to take it apart piece by piece.

Forgive me I've seen way too many horror/fantasy/genre films. I've seen good and bad. I've forgiven a lot of bad films because they managed to provoke a reaction and set a mood. While I tend to love films that turn out to be about something other than what you think going in, I really hate it when they don't work. Great flips make sitting through questionable moments worth it. A bad story flip makes it all just a waste of time. Despite a great first half and a sputtering second GOOD MANNERS is a waste of time.

Skip it.

Djon Africa (2018) NDNF 2018

A fiction film based on directors João Miller Guerra and Filipa Reis previous film, a documentary about a young man returning to Cape Verde to reconnect with his long lost father. The trip does not go as planned as the the man, sometimes called Djon Africa gets side tracked by the things he finds along the way.

Solid character study picks you up and carries you along with it's story of a drifter trying to find his lost past and forge a new future of maturity. To be certain it rambles about but it never really loses focus or interest. This isn't so much about really finding a lost father but a lost searcher.

Possibly the least arty of the films I've seen at New Directors this year this is the one film that I would most likely return to  for no real reason other than I had a good time watching it. Say what you will about NDNF, the films can some times work to hard to make you feel and think but DJON AFRICA makes it look so easy and simple that you really can't believe that there is anything more going on than a good time with interesting people.

One of the best films at NDNF it is heartily recommended.

NDNF 2018 Capsules: MILLA and DRIFT

MILLA (2017)
Two part mirrored film concerning the life of a young runaway and the choices she makes.

Slices from Milla's life are arranged so that the second half of the film acts as a mirror to the first. It's an interesting try but the forced nature of the mirroring kind of works against the notion that this real life since everything is a little too neat.

What does work about the film is that things are not judgmental, things just are. We see enough of Milla's life that we come to understand the whys and hows of the choices she has made.

An interesting film thats best for those who like artier takes in their films.

DRIFT (2017)
Experimental or avant garde film is going to be a long haul for anyone who doesn't like long takes of rooms and nature.

The film begins with two women at a resort and never really moves from there as we get fleeting dialog from the middle of conversations and lots of meaningful shots of the ocean and environments around it.

Whether it it means something will depend upon if you stay awake and if you have anything to read into the images. Its clear the director knows what she wants to say but is holding all of her cards close to her chest and not letting us really know what is happening.

That's not correct I have read some article on the film, however any clues or meanings contained are on the page and not on the screen.

Only recommended if you like beautiful images of the ocean

Bad Bunny (2017) NDNF 2018

Love it or loath it over long short has a teenager who always wears a helmet with bunny ears punishing his mother's lover.

Arty, mannered and artificial this tale of erotic madness would have been better in the hands of one of the Jodorowskys who could made this actually seem like something.

Actually I suspect this might have worked better had the lead not had the ridiculous bunny ears on though the whole film. Early on I just lost any respect for the film when the ears stayed on no matter what was happening.

Clearly I'm the wrong audience for this film, which is the usual feeling I get watching most films at New Directors New Films which more often than not seemed to be programmed for a very specific audience of which I am not part of.

If you're curious the film plays in Shorts Block 2 with the much better MOBIUS

Mobius (2017) NDNF 2018

Cinematic tone poem is dark and moody  and not what you expect and is worth taking a look when it runs at New Directors New Films.

The "plot" has a young woman in high school/ college going through her day while she narrates a tale of love lost...

...and that's all I' going to say since this film is big on mood and where it takes you depends on how you get there. Simply put I could tell you what happens and I could discuss it but until you see it it won't mean much.

I will say that based on this I want to see what director Sam Kuhn does next because he is definitely one to watch.

See it in the NDNF shorts block. For more information and tickets go here.

Scary Mother (2017) NDNF2018

Domestic drama gives way to a dark turn as Manana a fifty year old house wife throws herself into her writing. Becoming more and more obsessive about it, we begin to realize all is not well with our heroine.

Nato Murvanidze gives a towering performance in the lead. handling each turn with perfection. This is a performance that has rightly been the subject of awards. Murvanidze draws us in and grabs our throat dragging us along into this strange territory of the dark side of the soul in a way that very few filmmakers manage to get right. Imagine if Gena Rowlands worked with David Lynch and you might have an idea of what the performance is like.

This film is seriously kicks ass. I can see why Georgia submitted this for the Oscars and I also understand why they didn't pick it, the film is such that it leaves you feeling deeply disturbed for reasons not always clear. I had to watch the film a second time to write it up and found that I was bouncing though the second screening simply because I was uncomfortable.

Highly recommended. This is one of the better films at New Directors New Films.

For tickets and more information go here.

3/4 (2017) NDNF 2018

Minimalist drama follows teenage Milla who wants to go off and play piano, her younger brother Niki who simply wants to be silly and their dad who simply wants to talk about grand things and not deal with real life. Largely plotless the film is more a series of moments that add up to a a portrait of a family over a period of time.

Its a very well made  film that is going to play best if you life small whisper thin films where not much happens other than life. I was very mixed about the film. I love the technical aspects of the film, from the look, the acting and so on, however the fact it really is less concerned with things happening than it is in people reacting kind of lost me by the half way point.  Yes I knew what it was doing but I didn't much care.

Recommended for the art house crowd and those for whom the New Directors New Films less mainstream films are the manna for your soul.

ND/NF ’18: An Elephant Sitting Still

The short life of Chinese novelist-turned-filmmaker Hu Bo recalls that of the late Marcin Wrona, except it is even more tragic. Both killed themselves before receiving the international accolades bestowed on their final films. In the case of Hu, it was also his first (finished under the supervision of his parents and a sponsoring arts group), but it is quite a statement—running just a whisker under four hours. An auspicious and heartbreaking debut, Hu’s An Elephant Sitting Still screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films, giving ironic meaning to the festival’s very name.

Arguably, Elephant could be considered a Chinese descendant of Dreiser’s An American Tragedy for the way it portrays personal corruption as a symptom of societal corruption. It is also long, but it never feels excessive. We follow four profoundly unhappy residents of a depressed northern industrial city in a vaguely Altman-esque way, until their paths definitively and organically converge during the third act.

Each is miserable in his own way. Thuggish Yang Cheng is wracked with guilt after watching the best friend he cuckolded hurl himself to his death. Tightly wound high schooler Wei Bu also wrestles with guilt after pushing the school’s internet troll down a flight of stairs and into a vegetative state. Huang Ling was one of the victims he shamed, for carrying on an affair with the school’s married vice-principal. In contrast, elderly Wang Jin hasn’t injured anyone, but he has little meaningful human contact, aside from occasional visits from the son eager to consign him to a retirement home.

All four principles become fascinated with the urban legend of an elephant in the distant Manzhouli zoo, who has gone on strike, in the John Galt tradition, refusing to eat or move, as a perverse way of asserting its independent agency. It is a strange bit of apocrypha to obsess over, but it is certainly in keeping with the multiple layers of tragedy hanging over the film.

This is a sprawling but strangely hardscrabble epic that has a very digital look. Nevertheless, Hu and cinematographer Fan Chao use the whole screen, capturing some strikingly scarred urban vistas and playing games with depth of focus for effect. Above and beyond all else, Hu and his cast create four unsparingly messy but deeply haunted portraits of four very damaged people. They are almost like four distinctively dysfunctional parts of a dysfunctional whole (sort of like Jonathan Carroll’s novella Black Cocktail, but not as bleak). Indeed, deep down, there is a scintilla of hope that human connections can still be possible and meaningful—maybe.

Peng Yuchang and Wang Yuwen have some TV credits on their resume, but they each have an unaffected naturalism that makes them look and sound like they were plucked out of provincial high school to plays analogs of their own lives. At the risk of indulging in hyperbole, we would suggest Zhang Yu shows the intensity and unpredictability of vintage De Niro in the hoodlum role. Yet, Liu Congxi really anchors the film and keeps it honest as the dignified Wang Jin. He also forges some aptly paternal chemistry with the little girl playing his granddaughter, whose innocence is in fact quite important to the film.

Elephant is the sort of film that will knock you for a loop. It is amazing to think it is Hu’s first feature and depressing to know will be his last. In terms of scale, ambition, and purity of feeling, it is arguably the great Chinese morality play film of its era and a devastating critique of the so-called “Chinese Dream.” Very highly recommended, An Elephant Sitting Still screens (in all its four-hour glory) this Sunday (4/1) at MoMA and the following Sunday (4/8) at the Walter Reade, as part of ND/NF 2018.

Azougue Nazaré (2017) NDNF 2018

Tiago Melo's AZOUGUE NAZARE is a one of a kind must see. A clash of cultures between Maracatu, an Afro-Brazilian burlesque carnival tradition and Christianity the film is wild and alive something truly special.

Centering around a couple where the wife is a Christian and her husband is not so much, preferring to partake in the madness of Maracatu.  It's kind of hard to day more than that because in it's way this mix of styles and genres is hard to really hard to fully explain.

With moment of song, dance and even the supernatural, Melo's film doesn't feel acted as much as lived in.  We are watching a controlled documenting of  life unlike any other.

To be honest in trying to come up with a way of talking about the film I read several reviews which talked about the traditions behind what we see and other bits that fall outside of  the film. It is almost as if they, like I, were unable to fully put words together to discuss the film. To that end all I can say is just buy a ticket and take a ride.

For tickets and more information go here.