The 17th Annual !f Independent Film Festival is once again underway in Istanbul, and one standout documentary, Distant Constellation, is sure to resonate with anyone who has grappled with the ever-changing face of this city and the effects those changes have on its residents.
Taking place in a retirement home in Şişli, the film surveys its inhabitants as they muse over memories and times long past; a now blind photographer has the camera turned on him, an Armenian woman recounts childhood trauma, a pianist flirts nervously with the director. The relatively silent, capsule-like feeling of the home sits in stark contrast to the the modernity being hammered into nails and sewed into steel beams all around it. Taken together with the director’s minimalist filming style, the documentary cuts like a stone through to intimacy and the humane.
Director Shevaun Mizrahi recently won Best Documentary at the 2017 Seville European Film Festival and also earned special mention at the 2017 Locarno Film Festival in Italy last fall.
Be sure to catch the film at Salon 7 in City’s Cinema, Wednesday February 21 st at 16:00.
Image courtesy of the organizer.
Teşvikiye Cad. City’s Nişantaşı Alışveriş Merkezi No:162, 34204
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