Event

Ballast

(Lance Hammer, USA, 2008, 35mm, 96 min)

Winner of the Best Director award at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival! A young boy drifts through the spare flatlands of a wintry Mississippi township and a middle-aged man sits in his rural home, frozen in grief after his brother's suicide. These striking images set in motion a riveting story of three people trying to reposition their lives after experiencing a traumatic loss. Lance Hammer has been compared to the Dardenne Brothers, for the assured hand with which he tells a delicate, quietly unfolding story using understated means and non-professionals from the Mississippi Delta.

"The one indisputably great film at Sundance '08... (This) poetic and profound movie transcends categories and announces the arrival of a major new filmmaker." - Peter Travers, Rolling Stone.

"A startlingly assured, pitch-perfect first feature." - Manohla Dargis, The New York Times.