Tired Moonlight, Dp: Adam GinsbergOne of the few shocks of the otherwise steadfastly low-key Tired Moonlight, a recent inclusion in New York’s New Directors/New Films program, is discovering in the credit roll that Sean Price Williams didn’t shoot it. The film arrives at a point where seemingly every new low-budget indie shot on 16mm and featuring a hitherto unsung directorial newcomer—in this case Montana-born Britni West—is graced by the eye of this particular cinematographer: see The Vanquishing of the Witch Baba Yaga, Kuichisan, Young Bodies Heal Quickly, Christmas, Again, and several others, not to mention all the work in this vein he’s done for Alex Ross Perry. Williams is certainly skilled (it’s hard to find a review of a film boasting his work that doesn’t mention his name—a rare feat for a Dp), but as of now only demonstrably proficient in...
- 9/8/2015
- by Carson Lund
- MUBI
Maiko Endo's remarkable debut feature Kuichisan is less a film in the conventional sense than a collection of very striking images with musical rhythms, befitting the director's background as a musician. This gives the film quite a hypnotic effect, and the rushing succession of images, and its very intuitive free form jazz-like approach to structure and filmmaking technique allows this piece to elide any sort of easy categorization. Kuichisan has elements of fiction, documentary, and experimental films, but it resists any sort of labels, and is its own very fascinating object.Kuichisan is set in the town of Koza in Okinawa, Japan, and its thin sliver of a narrative centers on two figures. The first is a ten year-old boy (Raizo Ishihara) who we first see...
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- 6/23/2013
- Screen Anarchy
Easily the most out-there film I saw at last year’s Cph:dox was one touted by the programmers as “the discovery of the festival”: Maiko Endo’s Kuichisan, receiving its New York debut tomorrow as part of the LADIDa Festival. Previously, Endo was a vocalist in the band Battles and co-produced Jessica Oreck’s documentary Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo. Now, Oreck has produced Endo’s debut picture, with Beetle Queen d.p. Sean Price Williams behind the camera. Stunningly shot in both black-and-white and color, Kuichisan is a tumbling collection of images, organized as much by feeling, sensation and the rhythms of its experimental soundtrack as by narrative logic. At first blush the film is an imagistic portrait of its location, Okinawa, the Japanese islands controlled by the United States until the early 1970s and still the site of U.S. military bases. Endo follows a 10-year-old boy as he wanders the streets,...
- 9/13/2012
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
I have watched Kuichisan three times and I am still completely clueless as to what to write about it. Don't take that the wrong way, though. I am in total awe of writer-director Maiko Endo's film, from Sean Price Williams' amazing 16mm cinematography to the sublimely ambiguous blurring of fiction and non-fiction. Broken down to its most basic story lines, Kuichisan follows the existential journey of a prepubescent Japanese boy (Raizo Ishihara) who is navigating his budding spiritual beliefs. He wanders around his hometown of Koza, which is located on Okinawa Island, a former U.S. military base that has returned under Japanese control. As the boy searches the streets of Koza for his identity, the town that he inhabits is attempting to define its own identity and distinguish itself from the U.S. soldiers. All the while, an alienated American tourist named Evangeline (Eleonore Hendricks) also wanders around Koza,...
- 9/12/2012
- by Don Simpson
- SmellsLikeScreenSpirit
I’ve had wind of this for a while, via both filmmaker Kentucker Audley and programmer Miriam Bale (who has a feature on Beasts of the Southern Wild in our current issue), but now the news is public. On September 14 and 15, the 92Y Tribeca will host the first La Di Da film festival, which takes a look at the recent work of a group of post-Mumblecore figures, including Amy Seimetz, the Safdies, Sean Price Williams, Dustin Guy Defa, Alex Karpovsky, Kate Lyn Sheil, Eléonore Hendricks and Audley.
In the press release explaining the genesis of the event, Bale says, “I’ve programmed mostly classic films for many years, but recently I’ve seen contemporary films that look like new classics. Many were shot on 16mm. They’re simple yet sophisticated, and also experimental and really feel like something new. These filmmakers are using documentary or low-budget methods to film quickly and cheaply in the streets,...
In the press release explaining the genesis of the event, Bale says, “I’ve programmed mostly classic films for many years, but recently I’ve seen contemporary films that look like new classics. Many were shot on 16mm. They’re simple yet sophisticated, and also experimental and really feel like something new. These filmmakers are using documentary or low-budget methods to film quickly and cheaply in the streets,...
- 7/23/2012
- by Nick Dawson
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
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