About the program:
This Closeness (Dir. Kit Zauhar, 2023, 88 min) | Los Angeles premiere | 1:00pm
Tessa and Ben are staying in Philly for the weekend to attend Ben's high school reunion. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the couple has to rent a room in a stranger's apartment. That stranger is Adam, whose loneliness is immediately obvious to his new guests. Adam quickly becomes an unwilling voyeur to the most private parts of the couple's life. While Ben seeks validation from old classmates, Tessa is left to find her own affection within the confines of the apartment. When Tessa betrays Adam's trust, Adam goes to great lengths to assert his dominance over his home.
Q&A with Kit Zauhar moderated by Nina Menkes | 2:30pm
Actual People (Dir. Kit Zauhar, 2021, 84 min) | 3:00pm
An aimless girl in her final week of college goes to great lengths to win the affections of a boy from her hometown, Philadelphia, and ends up having to confront anxieties about her love life, family, and future. A bare-boned independent drama with brief but meaningful touches of gentle comedy, Actual People is a poignant triumph, a simple but effective voyage into the mind of a young woman trying to find herself in a world that has somehow become hostile to those who refuse to find a place within its preconceived standards.
TRT: 202 min
In person: Kit Zauhar and Nina Menkes
“[Zauhar] is a miniaturist with her own distinct directorial sensibility... [This Closeness] is a finely observed study of modern manners and mores." —Leslie Felperin, The Hollywood Reporter
"Razor-sharp... [This Closeness] push[es] the envelope stylistically, both in its striking compositions and in its sound design.” —Stephan Saito, Moveable Fest
“Dances an elegant line between cringe-comedy and erotic thriller. [This Closeness is] the sort of movie that gets under your skin through the sheer intelligence of its filmmaking prowess.” —Eric Kohn, IndieWire
"Actual People fits within the tradition of Slacker, Clerks, and Stranger Than Paradise, all films about unambitious ne’er-do-wells that nevertheless suggested that their directors had big things ahead of them." —Christian Zilko, IndieWire
"[Actual People is] emblematic of the universal terror and malaise for newly minted college graduates who are tossed out into the real world and met with the sudden blinding light of adulthood." —Brandon Yu, The New York Times
(Available to download after screening date)