Now in its 5th year, the American Independent Film Festival is once again offering viewers the opportunity to see American indie cinema on the big screen, with its “raw, visceral power, a force that surpasses blockbusters, studios, strategies, budgets in intensity, a force of the majority filtered through the talent of a new generation of filmmakers who are reinventing cinema, adapting it to their needs, to their creative voice, and in doing so are changing, little by little, the way we all make movies,” said director Gus Van Sant in a conversation with film critic Todd McCarthy.

Between June 23rd – 27th at the Romanian Peasant Museum Cinema and open air at Food Hood, we enter unconventional territory with a selection of films that have impressed critics and audiences alike at major festivals around the world.

Among them, in a national premiere, The Nest, a “highly nuanced study of the psychology of marital games that lingers long after the end credits roll” (The Hollywood Reporter) with Jude Law “in one of his best performances” (The Guardian).

Acclaimed at Sundance, where it had its world premiere in the Official Selection, the film captures the relocation of a couple who abandon their peaceful home in the American suburbs to start a new life in the UK. An ambitious entrepreneur (Jude Law) brings his American wife (Carrie Coon) and children to his home country to explore new business opportunities, but their new life threatens to tear their family apart.

 

The film’s director is Sean Durkin, made famous for his debut thriller Martha Marcy May Marlene, which garnered over 30 awards and more than 100 nominations and was named by film critics one of the best in recent history, “a stunning achievement,” according to The New Yorker.

 

AIFF.5 audiences will also see the Romanian premiere of Falling – the directorial debut of American star Viggo Mortensen, known around the world for his role in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the award-winning A Dangerous Method, Eastern Promises and “the wonderfully moving Captain Fantastic” (Variety).

 

“A bold first effort behind the camera for Viggo Mortensen, elegantly distilling painful truths for anyone who has ever had a complicated relationship with a parent” (Empire), Falling brings to the screen the story of two generations who cannot exist without each other: father and son, past and present, open wounds and different ways of seeing life.

“The film is a remarkable directorial debut that also tackles adjacently and interestingly the differences in American political thought through a symbolic father-son conflict” (The New York Times). Viggo stars as John, who lives with his partner Eric and their adopted daughter in Southern California. When his elderly father Willis (Lance Henriksen) comes to Los Angeles, their two different worlds become intertwined. Between conflict and acceptance, with situations both funny and cruel, their lives can no longer continue at the same pace. Falling, like The Nest, is distributed in Romania by Bad Unicorn.

 

This year’s edition of the festival also features the “ICONIC DEBUTS” section, where cinephiles will have the opportunity to watch or re-watch the first films of established American directors such as Jim Jarmusch, Richard Linklater or the Coen brothers.

 

Jim Jarmusch is one of the leading proponents and, in the meantime, exponents of independent cinema. Since 1980 he has directed films such as Down by Law (1986), Dead Man (1995), Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), and the more recently, Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), Paterson (2016) and The Dead Don’t Die (2019), all landmark titles in world cinema, awarded at festivals around the world.

Stranger than Paradise was awarded the Golden Camera for Best Debut at Cannes in 1984 and is an absurd, tragi-comic comedy about an eccentric New York drug addict who receives a surprising and somewhat unwelcome visit from a Hungarian cousin. From indifference and even hostility, a strong affection develops between the two oddballs. Audiences will recognise the well-known musician, John Lurie, who went on to collaborate with Jarmusch on Down by Law.

 

Known for his films that have a distinctive style and loose narrative structure, Richard Linklater is equally known for his comedies Slacker (1990), Dazed and Confused (1993), the trilogy Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013) as well as Boyhood (2014), which he filmed over a 12 year time-span with the same actors.

 

Slacker, his 1990 debut, documents a day in the life of Austin, Texas, through a camera lens that travels from place to place and offers a glimpse of the over-educated, social misfits, outcasts and eccentrics. The film, whose director also appears in the film, was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1991 Sundance Film Festival and was selected for preservation in 2012 at the United States National Film Registry “because of its cultural, historical and aesthetic significance.

 

Known around the world as the Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan Coen tackle several genres and cinematic styles that they frequently re-compose or parody. Their most acclaimed works include Raising Arizona (1987), Miller’s Crossing (1990), Fargo (1996), The Big Lebowski (1998), O Brother, Where are thou? (2000), No Country for Old Men (2007), Burn After Reading (2008), A Serious Man (2009) and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013).

Blood Simple marks the Coen brothers’ film debut. Considered a tribute to the noir genre, the film stars Frances McDormand, who won an Oscar for her role in Nomadland this year, and tells the story of Marty, a bar owner who hires a detective to kill his wife who is cheating on him with Ray, a much younger man. But the detective screws up the plan to better suit his own interests, and everything goes wrong. False assumptions, guilt, fear, it all turns into a desperate attempt to hide the evidence and leads to a confession as unexpected as it is ironic.

 

The full screening program will soon be available on filmedefestival.ro

Every year the American Independent Film Festival brings the newest, most creative and original American films to Romanian audiences and organizes workshops, debates, master classes with renowned filmmakers and actors, among them guests of previous editions: Joaquin Phoenix, Ethan Hawke, John C. Reilly, Kent Jones, Roberto Minervini, Benh Zeitlin, Jacques Audiard, Kirill Mikhanovski, Merawi Gerima, Maya Hawke and Sebastian Stan.

AIFF.5 is organized by Cinemascop Association with the support of: Banca Transilvania and is a cultural project funded by the Ministry of Culture.

Partners: Catena, Europa Cinemas, Food Hood, Romanian Peasant Museum, Peasant Museum Cinema, Eventbook.

Main Media Partners:  Radio Guerrilla, AGERPRES.

Media Partners:  Zile și Nopți, Cinemagia, Film Menu, Ziarul Metropolis, LiterNet, The Institute, Films in Frame, Movie News, IQ Ads, Smark, A List Magazine, CineGhid, Munteanu, AARC – All About Romanian Cinema, Radio România Cultural.

More about AIFF.5 can also be found on: https://filmedefestival.ro/american-independent-ff/editia-2021

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