BAMcinématek Honors Directors Gray, Kim

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Previews

Published on Friday, 11 December 2009 08:29

Written by Jessica Gatdula

Each year, BAMcinématek highlights emerging filmmakers who it believes are changing the cinematic landscape — those the organization has dubbed "The Next Director." Filmmakers who have received this honor in the past were Marc Recha, Marco Tullio Giordana and Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

American collaborators Bradley Rust Gray and So Yong Kim are this year's honorees, as they have garnered international acclaim for their minimalist films. As part of its "Next Director" series, BAMcinématek will screen both Gray and Kim's work-to-date from Dec. 8 through Dec. 17, 2009. In addition, BAMcinématek will screen three "Next Director Selects" — films that have been most influential on Gray and Kim.

Films to be screened as part of "The Next Director" schedule include:

Salt
directed by Bradley Rust Gray
Dec. 8 at 6:50 & 9:30 p.m.
For his first feature — a sincere, naturalistic character study — Gray headed to Iceland and assembled a team of non-professional actors. Brynja Thóra Gudnadóttir plays a young woman who,  during the course of a road trip, falls in love with her sister’s boyfriend. Gray’s lo-fi, improvisational aesthetic marked by handheld camerawork — some of it done by the actors themselves — and intimate close ups lends the material an uncommon emotional resonance. 

In Between Days
directed by So Yong Kim
Dec. 9 at 6:50 & 9:30 p.m.
Both a love story and a neo-realist depiction of assimilation, In Between Days is also an exploration of intimacy, communications, and human need that resonates with a quiet humanity and truth. Aimie, a recently arrived Korean immigrant teenager, has fallen in love with her best and only friend. Yearning to express her feelings for him, she is inhibited by the fear of losing their friendship. Their fragile relationship is challenged by the demands of living in a new country. With delicate but precise cinematography, every shot resonates with purpose.

The Exploding Girl
directed by Bradley Rust Gray
Dec. 10 at 6:50 & 9:30 p.m.
This moving new work is a delicate portrait of gestures, body language, and things left unsaid. Zoe Kazan is the cherubic Ivy, a young woman spending a college break at home in Brooklyn. Through the course of the week she struggles to connect with her boyfriend — a distance that widens through awkward cell phone conversations — while deepening her intimacy with childhood friend Al. Abetted by Eric Lin’s cinematography, Gray incisively details romantic awakening not by crafting a conventional love story, but by focusing on the richness of his characters and the subtleties of emotional communication.

Treeless Mountain
directed by So Yong Kim
Dec. 11 at 4:30, 6:50 & 9:40 p.m.
Kim’s minimalist, achingly poignant film features naturalistic performances from its young lead actresses. Abandoned by their mother, 6-year-old Jin and 4-year-old Bin are forced to fend for themselves while trying to find their way back to her. Kim allows intimate close-ups of the young girls’ heartbreakingly stoic faces to quietly convey the tragedy of a childhood taken too soon.

Question-and-answer sessions with either Kim or Gray will follow all of the 6:50 p.m. screenings.

The three "Next Director Selects" that will also screen include:
- Rosetta, directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne, at 4:30, 6:50 and 9:15 p.m. on Dec. 15
- Rebels of the Neon God, directed by Tsai Ming-liang, at 6:50 and 9:15 p.m. on Dec. 16
- Happy Together, directed by Wong Kar-wai, at 4:30, 6:50 and 9:15 p.m.

Tickets are $7 per screening for BAM Cinema Club Members, $11 for adults, and $8 for seniors, children and students.

For more information, visit http://www.bam.org/view.aspx?pid=1766

BAMcinématek presents The Next Director: So Yong Kim and Bradley Rust Gray
Dec. 8 to Dec. 17, 2009
BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11217
718-636-4100

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