In This World

PRIVATE
March 29 and 31

An often effective vérité slash of agitprop, Saverio Costanzo's DV suspenser is set in a West Bank Palestinian house (shot in Italy), where a contentious family of seven (led by a proud patriarch) get their usual daily turmoil ripped to shreds by an occupying force of no-nonsense Israeli soldiers. The handheld vibe is frequently contrived (the hairiest sequences involve the lights going out), and the script runs out of raw material, but this Desperate Hours-style standoff is acted with fierce conviction, and the pseudo-home-movie syntax is congenitally tense. The Israeli soldiers are given vulnerabilities and ambivalences, but make no mistake: It's a passionate critique of Israel's systematic human rights abuses. ATKINSON

photo: FSLC

Stoically despondent: Darwin's Nightmare

Details

New Directors/New Films
March 23 through April 3
MOMA, Alice Tully Hall, Walter Reade

Related Content

• This Week in the Voice: The Tilda Swinton Moment
  July 21, 2010
• The Ten Most Fashionable Asian-Americans In NYC
  May 22, 2012
• INDIAN LULLABY
  May 9, 2012
• RISING SON
  April 25, 2012
• SOPA: Has It Returned?
  March 16, 2012

More About

• Asia (Band)
• Michael Atkinson
• Dennis Lim
• Melissa Anderson
• David Ng

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Events Newsletter: What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

Shorts

This year's ND/NF offers a few spirited defenses of the ever beleaguered short format, none better than Chris Landreth's Oscar-winning Ryan(screening with Agnes and His Brothers, April 2 and 3, and also in the Oscar-nominated shorts program at Cinema Village this week). Another highlight is John Harden's deadpan La Jetée parody, La Vie d'un Chien (with Mila From Mars), in which a scientist develops a chromosome-altering drug that transforms humans into dogs, a breakthrough possibly motivated by the desire to consummate his forbidden love for pet canine Sylvie. Also of interest: Keith Bearden's The Raftman's Razor (with Duck Season), about two teenagers' obsession with an enigmatic anti-superhero comic book, and Michelange Quay's The Gospel of the Creole Pig (with Young Rebels), a powerfully associative meditation on the legacy of slavery in Haiti that encompasses religious rituals, stock market reports, and live pig slaughters, before culminating in a majestic three-minute crane shot of the Queensboro Bridge. JOSHUA LAND

ND/NF coverage continues next week.