Nina

Director Elisa Fuksas in person for Q&A on June 8!

Screening added Saturday, June 8 at 4:30pm!

Over the course of a hot summer in a near-empty suburb of Rome, a young woman in her 20s (Diane Fleri, My Brother Is an Only Child and I Am Love) indulges in a period of solitude and inner contemplation. She shuttles around in her yellow vespa, giving singing lessons, dog sitting and learning the art of Chinese calligraphy from an aged professor whose technical instructions are also meant to be (much needed) spiritual guidance. Her life's lack of direction is contained within impeccably composed and gorgeously shot portrayals of the district's architectural gems—large, modernist and Neoclassical buildings. This is no coincidence, as 31-year-old Fuksas is the daughter of two leading Italian architects and studied architecture herself before becoming a filmmaker. Modernist architecture and precise, clean compositions are the perfect backdrop to emphasize the sensuality imparted by Nina's enjoyment of sensorial pleasures in the ever-present heat: ice cream, the sound of crickets, poetry, and the breeze as she bikes through desolate locations that are like self-contained little worlds, all of which imperceptibly help move her onto the next stage in her life.