Today begins the Film Society's one-week exclusive theatrical run of sound recordist, sound designer, producer, and director (among other roles) Joaquim Pinto's intimate self-portrait What Now? Remind Me.
Pinto, a veteran of Portuguese film who’s worked with the likes of Raúl Ruiz, Manoel de Oliveira, and João César Monteiro, turns the camera on himself for this intimate account of living with HIV. The cinematic self-portrait, which screened at last year's New York Film Festival in addition to the Locarno Film Festival, Vienna Film Festival, and others (picking up the Special Jury Prize at Locarno), delves into facing the virus and its grueling toll on Pinto’s life as a cinematic trampoline by which Pinto examines life and the worldly beauty of the past and the present.
The film premiered at the 2013 Locarno International Film Festival to much critical appraise. Eric Kohn of Indiewire called the documentary “cinematic art” and compared it to the likes of Chris Marker. Keyframe's Beatrice Behn described it as “a diamond in the rough.”
Following Locarno, What Now? Remind Me screened at the 2013 New York Film Festival, where Carson Lund at In Review discussed it as “a film that has about the most open and generous approach to the possibilities of images of this entire festival.”
Francisco Ferreira at Cinema Scope also shared ideas about the film and the filmmaker's past work in his essay “A Truck Full of Turkeys: Thoughts on Joaquim Pinto’s What Now? Remind Me.”
The film is also a New York Times Critics' Pick and Jeannette Catsoulis describes it as “sensual and serious, intimate and ineluctable” in her glowing review.
What Now? Remind Me opens Friday, August 8 at the Film Society for a one-week theatrical run, along with a retrospective of Joaquim Pinto's prior work. Watch the trailer below:
