The Invention of Morel
score by GREG “COSMO D” HEFFERNAN
Poster by Jennifer Daniel
“The story of a convict who flees to an island thought to be inflicted with a terrible disease — the perfect hideout. Once there, he encounters a mysterious gathering and falls in love with one of the most Sphinx-like women in the history of moving images.”
— Arnold Jeffries, Shutterspeed
Siddhartha
score by PETER KOWALCHUK
Poster by Zack Sultan
“This low-budget, ultra-realist film set in India, may take its title from the Herman Hesse novel about a boy named Siddhartha during the time of the Buddha, but the storyline ultimately has nothing to do with this. It actually about a girl, played by the charming Bollywood actress Ayush Mahesh Khedekar. It’s about her life on the outskirts of Ahmedabad — the administrative center of the state of Gujarat. It is a film about religion and her relationship with previous generations, as the city is transformed into an information technology capital and business center. It is perhaps one of the most refreshing attempts to use outsider film techniques about issues close to the heart of one of the world’s fastest growing countries.”
— Ambassador T.W. Chester, former representative of Her Majesty’s government in New Delhi
Mirror, Mirror
score by WESLEY HARRIS
Poster by Manya Kuzemchenko
“Mirror, Mirror may be the first of an astonishing Abyssinian space romance genre, but it will likely be looked to as the holy grail by decades of imitators.”
— Joss Whedon
In Residence
score by DUNCAN WOLD
Poster by Zack Sultan
“This haunting film is not for the faint of heart — or the claustrophobic. We are presented with Jane, an artist who begins a residency at a strange home filled with junk. Her goal is to fashion the detritus into a piece of artwork speaking to the theme of recycling and ‘green’ building practices. But things get twisted when the junk compels her to construct an elaborate and, at times, beautiful trap for herself, which she slowly begins to realize is locking her in, pressing her downward into infinite, interlocking chambers. Even as she becomes more entangled in the web of the house, it begins to provide her with sustenance necessary to continue her work.”
— Dina Bloomberg, Down the Rabbit Hole Zine
A Festival of Death
score by DIEGO STOCCO
Poster by Thomas Rennie
“A Lynchian saga that begins and ends with a train station and a man with a package. The story takes places from the 1940s to 2020. In the final scene, the director presents a montage that includes men in effusive Sufi prayer, a stranger walking toward the station, crowds and faces, screens and screens of screens, blurred profiles, a long period where our protagonist stares at the a grand, crumbling train station that hearkens to the colonial buildings of Asia and something new and uncanny, shots of arcades and gritty depictions of the future, with its bands of purists and roofs full of satellite dishes (an unclean, cluttered future, as compared to the sleek, metallic future we are used to). The scene is really crowded — not always in terms of masses of people, but masses of action, slow action, and confused ethnicities, a weird chaos held by a thin balance. There is a trickle of blood on the street, where someone was hit by a speeding vehicle. Truly a terrifying feat of cinema.”
— Arbor Smith, The New York Sun