The Tale of King Crab
59th New York Film Festival
September 24 - October 10, 2021
Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis’s rousing, bifurcated tale follows the improbable adventures of Luciano (a bewitching Gabriele Silli), a village outcast in late-19th-century rural Italy, whose life is undone by indulgence, leading him to hunt for a mythic treasure in the distant Argentine province of Tierra del Fuego.
Now playing! All screenings feature a special video introduction by Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis.
This rich, engrossing fiction feature debut from documentary filmmakers Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis takes storytelling itself as its subject. Based on a legendary figure about whom the filmmakers first heard while making their previous collaboration, 2015’s Il Solengo, this rousing, bifurcated tale follows the improbable adventures of Luciano (a bewitching Gabriele Silli), a village outcast in late-19th-century rural Italy. In the film’s first half, set in the countryside near Rome, his life is undone by alcohol, forbidden love, and an escalating quarrel with a local aristocrat; in the second, Luciano is in the distant Argentine province of Tierra del Fuego, hunting for a mythic treasure with the help of a compass-like crab. Rigo de Righi and Zoppis have created a highly unconventional narrative of redemption, alternating images of grandeur and folkloric idiosyncrasy. An Oscilloscope Laboratories release. An NYFF59 Currents selection.
Introducing Matinee Pricing! All tickets are $10 for screenings before 3pm.
Enjoy 10% off beer and wine at Indie Food and Wine when presenting your ticket (digital or printed) for FLC programming. Offer must be redeemed the same day of screening. All refreshments and food from Indie can now be enjoyed during EBM screenings!
Echoes the best work of Werner Herzog and Lucrecia Martel... de Righi and Zoppis are moviemakers worth keeping an eye on.
—Glenn Kenny, The New York Times
One of the secret cinematic jewels of the year.
—Ayeen Forootan, InReview
A magical, shape-shifting fable.
—Rory O'Connor, The Film Stage
Part Herzogian ecstatic ethnography, part Pasolinian picaresque.
—Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire
A rare breed of film which inhabits both past and present; harkening back to the ambitious days of cinema of the 60s and 70s.
—Dustin Chang, ScreenAnarchy
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