Shorts Program 1

Q&As with Sebastián Pinzón Silva and Arash Nassiri (joined by Gabe Elder on 4/1). Before the screening on 3/30, all ticket holders are invited to the LG Signature Lounge, featuring a complimentary bar, at the Walter Reade Theater.

From an atmospheric thriller set in Iran, uncanny and moving sketches of displaced people, to a musical documentary and an atypical dance film, these five bold shorts evoke the struggles and joys of communities from around the world.

City of Tales
Arash Nassiri, France/USA, 2018, 20m
Farsi with English subtitles
North American Premiere
Los Angeles plays Tehran in Arash Nassiri’s uncanny, nocturnal meditation on memory and place, which follows a group of people during Nowruz, the 13-night celebration of the Iranian New Year.

Rupture
Yassmina Karajah, Jordan/Canada, 2017, 18m
Arabic with English subtitles
New York premiere
Unable to communicate with the world around them, young Arab teenagers attempt to navigate their new town on a sticky summer day, in search of comfort and a public swimming pool.

Palenque
Sebastián Pinzón Silva, Colombia/USA, 2017, 25m
Spanish/Palenquero with English subtitles
New York Premiere
Sebastián Pinzón Silva’s ambulant, melodic documentary is set in San Basilio de Palenque, evoking the rich musical history and collective memory of the first freed slave settlement in the Americas.

Gaze / Negah
Farnoosh Samadi, Iran/Italy, 2017, 14m
Persian with English subtitles
New York Premiere
A woman witnesses a crime and must decide whether to speak up in Farnoosh Samadi’s taut and tense film.

Home Exercises
Sarah Friedland, USA, 2017, 21m
New York Premiere
Sarah Friedland’s nonfiction dance portrait of the gestural habits of elderly people in their homes is a sweet, droll, and precisely observed study of the subtle movements and choreographies of domesticity.