DISTANT CONSTELLATION

A film by Shevaun Mizrahi
2018, 82 minutes
No. 206
Documentary
DISTANT CONSTELLATION
$375.00
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Description
This haunting, gorgeous documentary drops us inside an Istanbul retirement home, where the battle-scarred residents bask in the camera’s attention. A creaky- voiced woman confides her personal account of the Armenian genocide. A sweetly deluded pianist performs a composition before confessing his love. A blind photographer fiddles with his flash as he points his own camera back at us.

Shevaun Mizrahi’s playful, immaculately controlled film finds hypnotizing rhythms in the residents’ limbo-like state. Meanwhile, outside, ominous construction equipment transforms the land.


Festivals
Nominee, Truer Than Fiction Award, Film Independent Spirit Awards
Nominee, Best Debut Film, Cinema Eye Honors
Winner, Best Cinematography, IDA Awards
Winner, Golden Apricot, Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival
Winner, Special Mention, Locarno International Film Festival
Winner, FIPRESCI Prize, Viennale
Winner, Best Picture Prize, Jeonju International Film Festival
Official Selection, True/False Film Fest
Official Selection, BAMcinemaFest
Official Selection, London Film Festival

Reviews
"A beautiful portrait of old age. Soulful, humorous, visually delicate. One of the more exciting achievements in nonfiction cinema in recent memory." – Indiewire

"A dazzling study of age and memory." – Financial Times

"A remarkable portrait of life in a huge Istanbul old-age home. Recommended." – Video Librarian

“A captivating documentary.” – Little White Lies

"Funny, startling and touching... Dreamlike... an unusually warm, complex and illuminating picture." – Sight & Sound

"A bracingly rigorous and visceral experience." – Filmmaker Magazine

“A moving portrait of both the young and old at a Turkish retirement home.” – Vox

“A master class in the art of the portrait. The beauty of the film is its commitment to articulating a sense of space and yet revealing that space to be a kind of nowhere… The film’s subjects are encircled by clocks and watches, aurally wrapped up in tick-tock sounds, or transfixed by the passing of the moon.” – Slant Magazine


Subjects