2018 New Horizons IFF Dailies: Nocturnal | Day 5 of IONCINEMA in Wroclaw

Almost a year after I couldn’t get to Venice in time for the opening screening, Nowe Horyzonty finally gave me the chance to see Lucretia Martel’s Zama (IONCINEMA.com’s Nicholas Bell raved about the film after the TIFF screening).  At the time of my arrival on the Lido last year – minutes after the end of the film – I had found a muted atmosphere, with people still shook from what immediately seemed a mismatch of filmmaker, film, audience and scheduling (bizarrely the film was not in competition). Here in Wrocław’s more relaxed setting, with months gone by to dull the edge of anticipation, Zama screened on the top floor of Kino Nowe Horyzonty to a full room, but a more intimate reception.

Absurdly funny (something I had read about, and yet still could not quite believe), and then swiftly brutal when its poetry of idleness needs to face its consequences at last, Martel’s film came at the end of yet another day in which my schedule only met films directed by women.

I started with Mania Akbari’s One.Two.One, which I found just as mesmerizing in the gravitational pull it generates between two faces in its series of vis-a-vis sketches. “Once you see it, you feel like you know them in person, which of course is an illusion”, a friend had warned me.

Before heading to meet the local press scene on a boat party on the river, I followed that up with My Friend the Polish Girl (Ewa Banaszkiewicz and Mateusz Dymek), a faux-documentary about the perils of wanting cinema to happen where there’s nothing to substantiate it. Look for a more in-depth analysis shortly with concerns to this film.