Event

Distant Constellation

Fri Mar 08: 7.30pm
Sat Mar 09: 7.30pm
Sun Mar 10: 4.30pm, 7.30pm

Shevaun Mizrahi
US, Turkey & Netherlands
2017
1h 22m

** Co-presented with Seattle Turkish Film Festival! **

About
Mortality encroaches on the elderly residents of a retirement home in Istanbul.

Confined to the building and to their ailing bodies, their windows look out onto a nearby construction site where they can watch the toil of young migrant workers, casual virtuosos of physicality. Yet the residents are abundant with life-energy: a former studio photographer, nearly blind, skillfully maintains his treasured equipment; a childless woman recalls with crystalline detail being the nanny of two children; a 75-year-old man writes of his sexual memories and expresses unabated feelings of desire (even towards the filmmaker).

As they pass the winter sleeping, singing songs, playing piano, or riding the elevator for the sheer enjoyment of the motion, Mizrahis unwavering camera breathes with them. Her patience allows the audience to see them not merely as they are now, but as they have always beena glimpse into their essential souls.

Description courtesy of Andy Stark. All images on this page courtesy of Grasshopper Film. Visit Grasshopper for official captions.

Mizrahis circumscribed scope gives the film focus and density. We never see any caretakers, relatives or trips outside, and she allows a few subjects to grow into portraits that give a sense of the fullness of life, inflamed or blinking in and out erratically a characterful variety of emotion, which gains gravitas from the way its inevitably shaded by regret or fearfulness. Mark Asch, Little White Lies

Funny, startling and touching Dreamlike an unusually warm, complex and illuminating picture. Hannah McGill, Sight & Sound