The festival program includes eight indie films on a variety of themes and issues addressed by independent American directors living today. Adults who have failed to bid farewell to their childhood, an enormous library, and the phenomenon of urban memory are just some of the main “characters” featured in these movies.
The films in the festival touch upon identity issues and intercultural dialogue disclosed differently in each of the pictures. Jennifer Brea’s documentary Unrest tells the story of people with chronic fatigue syndrome, who try to find each other and fight the world’s indifferent attitude together. The young protagonist of Hittman’s Beach Rats is looking for answers to many questions inside himself and finds out it’s not an easy thing in our violent times. Documentary Ex Libris—by the living legend, Frederick Wiseman—is dedicated to the community that has formed around the New York Public Library. Jin, the main character of Columbus, was born in Korea but grew up in the U.S.: as an adult, who had complicated relationships with his own father, he is concerned with the “fathers and sons” problem, as well as with self-identity issues. The heroes of the Infinity Baby mumblecore manifest how the notion of responsibility has evolved in the twenty-first century, where one can always stay infantile. Another mumblecore guru, Alex Ross Perry, reconstructs the feelings of lost youth which surface among successful and accomplished Brooklyn natives following a meeting with a young Australian girl. Lovers from Azazel Jacobs’s film of the same name have to overcome infidelity before discovering genuine love. Director Travis Wilkerson travels back to his family’s and home country’s past in Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun? having learnt that his great-grandfather easily avoided prison despite shooting a black man in 1946.
The film festival is organized by the Arthouse company and the U.S. Embassy in Moscow