TIMESTAMP(2025) NDNF 2025

This is one of the must see films at this year's New Directors New Films. It is a look at the lives of school kids in Ukraine during the war. It is a telling portrait that would make a great double feature with the companion film MR NOBODY AGAINST PUTIN, which shows how schooling changed in Russia once they went to war.

This is a film where we focus on the kids. While there are signs of war (we see the aftermath) and we see air raid warnings sending everyonh of the human spirit. We to shelters, the war is on the outside.  Life is being lived as it has always been, but with some modifications.

A deeply moving work, TIMESTAMP shows us the strength. Yea the kids are being affected by war, and it is rattling their cages, but at the same time there is laughter and life. As a result there is hope.

I was moved. 

if you want, or if you need a film about Ukraine that is more than destruction and will not leave you broken, see TIMESTAMP.

GRAND ME (2024) NDNF 2025

A nine year old girl who lives with her grandparents in Iran institutes a legal proceeding to stay with the parent of her choice, but it doesn't play out as she expects it to.

Shot by the young girl's aunt this is a warts and all portrait of a little girl you are either going to love or want to hit. A self absorbed kid who thinks she's got it all figured out I never warmed to her  and wished  someone would knock some sense into her. Because I didn't care for the kid at the center of the film I found it hard to feel for her plight.

While the look at Iranian society from a different perspective is very enlightening, there wasn't much here for me to hang on to. 

Your mileage may vary

Sad Jokes (2024) NDNF 2025

 

Fabian Stumm’s SAD JOKES never clicked with me. The story of a filmmaker, played by Stumm, trying to deal with his career, single fatherhood (his son’s mom is in a hospital for depression)  and romance always kept me at arms length.

The problem is that Stumm isn’t that an engaging actor. He is a good looking guy who never really seems to have anything going on beyond looking good. His expression rarely changes. This is problem when the first person we see is Sonya played by Haley Louise Jones whose whole being is on display in everything she says and does. You can feel the waves of emotion washing over her and into the audience, you don’t get that from Stumm. You want to follow Jones or any other character other than the one played by the writer director.

It might have worked for me if Stumm had shot the film differently. Shot in longer takes with few close ups the film trades the intimacy of close ups and varied shots for sequences playing out in real time. If you have actors to pull it off it can result in emotional moments, but Stumm never manages to pull it off.

I never really cared.

A miss.

Holy Electricity (2024) NDNF 2025

This is Tato Kotetishvili​'s love letter to his hometown of Tbilisi.

After spending the last few weeks getting upset at films at four different film festivals because they had problems with the narrative, Tato Kotetishvili​ has made me realize that when you create some glorious characters you really don't have to worry about the plot. (Of course, the film is more about the characters than the plot.)

The plot of the film has cousins Gonga and Bart. They find a suitcase of crosses and they decide to clean them up, put on neon lights and sell them to the people of the town.

I'm not going to lie and pretend to say that anything big and exciting happens beyond that, it know what really doesn't.  What happens is people interact and are human and amusing. It's like looking at window on to life and getting a smile.

I loved this film. I loved being in this place with these people and in this case that's all I needed.

I can't wait to see it a third time.

That's a rave.

See this film and be delighted.

No Sleep Till (2024) NDNF 2025

Docu-narrative look at the people in a small Florida town as a hurricane bears down on them.

This is a series of unrelated stories only connected to each other by the location and by the approaching storm. Each film is told in more or less its own way, with its own pacing.

This is a film you are either going to love or hate. The low key approach isn’t for anyone. This is a film full of silences and random conversations. Its film that isn’t telling a set story but a lot of little tales that make up a larger portrait.

It looks great and the characters are interesting, but I don’t know if it all really comes together. To me this feels like a lot of pieces looking for a home.  While it’s looking for the bigger portrait, it kind of fuzzes out and pixelates. Yea, the pieces are great but over all… not so much.

One thing I did in reading on the film compared it to the work of Kelly Reichart, which is kind of understandable, but which I don’t like Reichart’s films, I at least thought they are more exciting than this.

I honestly drifted off  about half way through. I was watching but not as intently as I could have or should have.

I have no idea what you’ll think but I think it’s fair to say your mileage will vary.

CycleMahesh (2024) NDNF 2025

 

One of the most enjoyable films at  this year’s New Directors New Films is a film that is largely just one man  cycling across India.

CYCYCLEMAHESH is the true story of a man named Mahesh who decides to cycle home across India during the 2020 lock downs.  The film is simply Mahesh cycling and interacting with people and occasionally changing a flat tire.  It doesn’t sound like much but the truth is the story is compelling enough that when the ride too place Mahesh became a minor celebrity for a while.

There is something joyous about this film  nothing really happens and yet we get caught up in the ride and the stream of consciousness voice over. It’s a story where we don’t pat an eye as the person playing Mahesh changes.(The man himself shows up at the end).

I loved this film. I have no idea why, but for the entire 61 minutes I was lost in India and taken away from the daily grind.

One of the great films of NDNF and the great finds of 2024

Kyuka Before Summer's End (2024)NDNF 2025

A father sails with his two college age children to one of the Greek islands. Nominally it’s for a vacation, but he has other plans in mind, in particular to get the kids to meet the mother who ran out on them when they were babies.

Despite the fact that the set up sounding serious, this is a surprising up beat little film. First time director Kostis Charamountanis has mad a one of a kind film that moves along at a great clip and manages to work despite making several choices that would have sunk any other film.

While the film starts off conventional, the film shifts once we get to the island into something else. Using experimental or if not that unconventional techniques, fragmented narrative and a few other things, the film takes on a life of its own. The techniques are showy and in your face and in any other hands would have come off as annoying but here the tricks come off completely in line with the tone of the film. This is a warts and all family vacation where your family does weird things but you don’t care because you love them and the weirdness is them. Here the repeated shots or removed shots or whatever else is all part of the charm of the film.

That the film works is entirely due to the cast who aren’t so much acting as just living life. If I didn’t know any better I would swear everyone was related to everyone else. There is an ease and a joy to the interaction that makes you feel as though everyone has lived their lives together.

This film is a joy.

This is one of the best films at this year’s New Directors New Films and is highly recommended.

LISTEN TO THE VOICES (2025)NDNF 2025

Melrick visits his grandmother in French Guiana, He is from France, his mother having fled the violence that once engulfed the country and took the life of his uncle. As he falls in love with the country and learns to play the drums, he learns of the history of his family and the country.

Walkng a line between narrative and documentary director Maxime Jean-Baptiste blends both forms to create a fil that feels real and yet something else. Lucas, the young man who was killed in the film was a real person and his story informs the tale. Real footage of events is woven into the film. At the same time there are hypnotic sequences set in the jungle. This is modern cinema firing on all cylinders.

This is a wonderful film that, as with many New Directors New FIlms selections over the years, is not a big and flashy film that gives you a big emotional moment. Insead it is a film of quiet power that sneaks up on you and haunts you for days. Its a film that  produces emotions, and perhaps a few tears, not just when you see it the first time, but later when you are thinking about it. 

LISTEN TO THE VOICES haunted me.

Recommended

LOST CHAPTERS (2024) NDNF 2025

Young woman returns from Spain to visit her father. Arriving home she finds he is searching for rare books that will help preserve Venezuelan history and that her grandmother's memory is fading. When she finds a postcard  stuck in a book, she sets off with her dad to find a previous unknown book.

If you have been going to New Directors New Films for any length of time you know that the festival frequently shows small films that, while good, are probably not going to get a huge release. It's not that that they are bad, rather that they are just so low key or atypical most distributors in the US wouldn't know what to do with them. Often, as in the case with LOST CHAPTERS, small also means short, in this case 67 minutes, which means most theaters won't play it. That means if you like small, atypical films, you are going to have to jump to NDNF in order to see it.

This is a low key film that isn't really about the plot. Told in longish static shots this is more about the relationships of the people and the ideas being discussed in their conversations. This is a film about family, about memory, about how we see the past and decide what to hold on to, and what we unexpectedly lose. It's a film where we follow some good people around for a while and see how they feel about the things in their lives. I know some people have compared it to a documentary  in its approach but that isn't quiet right, while some sequences feel that way, others are most decidedly written.

I like the film. Its a small gem of a film. It doesn't have bells and whistles, it just quietly entertains and makes you ponder life. That this film is probably going to disappear from view here in the US is a kind of a sad sign about the state of American cinamtic tastes. That said, if you want to see something good, mae an effort to go see LOST CHAPTERS before it disappears from  New Directors.

DROWNING DRY (aka Seses aka Sisters) (2024) NDNF 2025

When I saw that Laurynas Bareiša's follow up to the excellent PILGRIMS was at New Directors New Films I got excited. I was even more intrigued when I realized that it also had been short listed as Lithuanian entry for the Oscars.

The film is very hard to discuss.  The film is about two sisters and their families who go to a remote cabin and something happens. What happens at that 36 minute mark is not immediantly clear and the film spends the next hour bouncing through time and replaying some events as we see what happened after in fragmented form. How you react to the film is determined by the pieces that are thrown our way. Because the trip is required to get a fair reaction I can't tell you more regarding details.

I will say that with this second cinematic foray Bareiša has taken a step toward being recognized as a crafter of fine human dramas. The characters are compelling, the situations feel real. There is a sense that for the most part this is happening right before us.

I will also say that I'm not so certain that the fragmentary telling of the tale really works. I say that because the fragmentation implies something greater than what we get. I wish the film had played out chronologically and that what happens happened without the broken narrative. The strength of the directors earlier film was the fact that it played out like life with no grand revelation promised nor given. Here the shift from straight forward to chronological muddies the water needlessly.

That isn't to say it breaks the film. It doesn't. It just makes what would have been a near great film into a solidly good one and that is enought to recommend it when it plays New Directors New Films.

Virgin of the Quarry Lake (2025) NDNF 2025

When another girl finds that the affections of the man, she is interested are being directed towards another she takes magical steps to try and stop the pair.

This moody and oppressive fantastical romance of sorts is going to send chills through your body. This is a creepy little film full of the dark side of humanity.

While there is much to love in the film, some may not be happy with the deliberate pacing. There are lots of times where we simply observe and other times where there aren’t conversations but speeches. This is very much an art house film.  If you are okay with that and get with the film’s vibe this film is going to leave you deeply bothered (I mean deeply bothered)

Recommended

New Directors New Films 2025 starts this week

 

New Directors New Films starts this week and cineastes in the NYC metro area are going crazy.

Filled with films from new and upcoming filmmakers the festival is a good place to see the work of people who may one day become the next big thing. The festival is also the place to see a lot of works that may not get a big release until the filmmaker makes a name for themselves. I’m not being snarky, but it’s true, a lot of films that play the fest either never get a regular US release or only get picked up after the director hits (I’m constantly reposting reviews of films from a couple of years before) so if you want to see a film- do not hesitate.

The films at NDNF tend to be more art house than mainstream. This is great is you want to see good films, but not if you are looking for the next big Hollywood thing because the festival doesn't really do Hollywood much.

Additionally because the films are all over the place in subject and in style it’s hard to say what the festival is any year in particular. The festival casts a wide net and is great for people who want their cinematic horizons widened. At the same time I can’t say it’s all good because every year the fest is hit or miss depending upon my persona reaction to the films.

This year my favorites of what I’ve seen are as follows. 

CycleMahesh is a recreation of a man biking home during the covid lockdown. Not much happens but it is an absolute delight.

Holy Electricity has two guys selling crosses and it's just great time with great people.

Kyuka Before Summer's End is an experimental first film about a boat trip that should not work but somehow delights on every level

Listen To The Voices is about a young man from France finding a home in the place his mother came from. It's lovely

Timestamp is a doc about kids going to school in Ukraine during the war. 

Virgin of the Quarry Lake is a deeply disturbing thriller about a fractured relationship.

As always if there is something that looks interesting go see it because you may not get a chance to see the film again. And because a lot of the screenings sell out I suggest you buy tickets for anything that interests you sooner than later.

For tickets and more information go here