Directed by Bill Morrison • 2021 • United States
Starring Gísli Fannar Gylfason, Erlendur Sveinsson, Peter Bagrov
During the summer of 2016, a fishing boat off the shores of Iceland made a most curious catch: four reels of 35 mm film, seemingly of Soviet provenance. Unlike the film find explored in Bill Morrison’s DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME, it turned out this discovery wasn’t a lost work of major importance, but an incomplete print of a popular Soviet comedy from 1969, starring the beloved Russian actor Mihail Žarov. Does that mean it has no value? Morrison thought not. To him, the heavily water-damaged print, and the way it surfaced, could be seen as a fitting reflection on the film work of Žarov, who re-emerges from the bottom of the sea fifty years later like a Russian Rip Van Winkle, to a world where reels of film are as antiquated as the Soviet Union. But if celluloid film is the only medium that can survive the ocean, how will future generations remember us? Morrison uses the discovery as a jumping-off point for a meditation on cinema’s past, offering a journey into Soviet history and film accompanied by a gorgeous score by Pulitzer- and Grammy-winning composer David Lang.
Up Next in 21st Century Cinema
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Phantom Boy
Directed by Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli • 2015 • France, Belgium
Starring Jared Padalecki, Vincent D’Onofrio, Melissa DisneyThis animated noir caper is a stylish, heart-thumping adventure that prowls the shadowy streets and alleyways of New York and swoops and soars above the greatest ...
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The Reagan Show
Directed by Pacho Velez and Sierra Pettengill • 2017 • United States
Starring Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Barbara WaltersComposed entirely of archival footage, The Reagan Show is an ingenious work of media analysis about the original performer-president’s role of a lifetime. Teasing apart the ...
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Nina
Directed by Hristo Simeonov • 2019 • Bulgaria
Starring Plamena Stefanova, Margita Gosheva, Borislav Rusev-BiniWith heartrending realism, this powerful portrait of a stolen childhood evokes the world of a young pickpocket who receives an unexpected chance to escape her desperate circumstances.
