A SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME
A film by Lisa Marie Malloy and J.P. Sniadecki
2020, 77 minutes
2020, 77 minutes
No. 275
Documentary
Documentary
Description
Sundog lives out in the Sonora Desert on the Mexican border. He is an elderly gentleman, who lives off anything that the brutal nature gives him, be it a wild boar or the psychedelic poison of a toad. 'A Shape of Things to Come' gives precedence to the sensory materiality of the desert instead of to explanations and dialogue, and moves beyond the human scale and down to animal perspectives.
It creates a world that stretches from a distant past in the ecological movements of the 1960s to a possible future in the aftermath of the apocalypse. But the border patrol agents are threatening the peace in Sundog's desert kingdom, which the armed recluse is prepared to defend.
With the desert as the ultimate existential (and cinematic) setting, the film shows the relationship between humanity and nature at a critical time, when civil disobedience is the provocative answer to the most pressing questions.
With the desert as the ultimate existential (and cinematic) setting, the film shows the relationship between humanity and nature at a critical time, when civil disobedience is the provocative answer to the most pressing questions.
Festivals
Official Selection, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam
Official Selection, CPH:DOX Film Festival
Official Selection, Camden International Film Festival
Official Selection, RIDM / Montreal Documentary Film Festival
Official Selection, Lincoln Center's Art of the Real Festival
Official Selection, FICUNAM Film Festival
Winner, Special Jury Award, L'Alternativa Film Festival
Official Selection, CPH:DOX Film Festival
Official Selection, Camden International Film Festival
Official Selection, RIDM / Montreal Documentary Film Festival
Official Selection, Lincoln Center's Art of the Real Festival
Official Selection, FICUNAM Film Festival
Winner, Special Jury Award, L'Alternativa Film Festival
Reviews
"A loner in America’s Southwestern desert is the elusive subject of this mysterious documentary... Directors Lisa Marie Malloy and J.P. Sniadecki’s minimalist portrait evokes several themes — everything from the restorative power of nature to civilisation’s destructive tendencies." – Screen Daily
“Fascinating. Sublime. Has aesthetic qualities that rival anything contemporary documentary has to offer. Images are remarkably composed… The title’s other inference—referencing 'The Shape of Things to Come,' a book H.G. Wells wrote in 1933 that offers speculations about the future of the world through to 2106—gives another indication as to what the film might be about.” – Brooklyn Rail
