Made up of several sections (Rbc’s Emerging Storytellers program, No Borders International Co-Production Market and Spotlight on Documentaries), we find latest updates from the likes of docu-helmers Doug Block (112 Weddings) and Lana Wilson ( After Tiller), and among the narrative items we find headliners in Andrew Haigh (coming off the well received 45 Years), Sophie Barthes (Cold Souls and Madame Bovary), Terence Nance ( An Oversimplification of Her Beauty), Lawrence Michael Levine ( Wild Canaries), Jorge Michel Grau ( We Are What We Are), Eleanor Burke and Ron Eyal ( Stranger Things) and new faces in Sundance’s large family in Charles Poekel (Christmas, Again) and Olivia Newman ( First Match). His idea of perfection is an endless supply of everything they need, with nobody around to share it with, while she worries about what comes after the novelty wears off.The premiere post-tiff destination (September 20-25th) in the film community and a major leg up for narrative and non-fiction films in development, the Independent Filmmaker Project (Ifp) announced a whopping 140 projects selected for the Project Forum at the upcoming Ifp Independent Film Week. O’Leary, who is so natural and charismatic that if there is any justice he’s got stardom in his tarot cards. The writing and co-direction, by the team of Geoffrey Orthwein and Andrew Sullivan, is so careful and revelatory that the viewer shares in every scene, and Matt O’Leary and Maika Monroe, the two actors who dominate every frame of the picture, are so attractive and intelligent that you can’t wait to know them better. Later, when they tire of sightseeing alone and sampling the wine lists in empty restaurants, they get around to more pressing issues, like how their predicament fits into themes of religion and science. The girl is more concerned with reaching her family and hoping they won’t run out of water and electricity. The question, he asks, is not “What is happening?” but “What do we do about it?” His mojo is “Re-stock on every important item in the food and clothing stores, then establish squatters rights in the most comfortable house in town and upgrade with a bigger, better automobile. In the circumstances, the boy is the pragmatic one, accepting his fate with glee and a smorgasbord of multiple choices. If it’s a plague, where are the bodies? If it’s an alien invasion, what happened to the space ships? In the 90 minutes that follow, bewilderment and confusion morph into fear and a feeling of uneasy isolation, then a mixture of resignation and eventual despair. On their laptop computer, no emails, posts or texts of any kind from anyone. Yes, that country has a film industry, although it, too, is minuscule, but with this film as evidence, quite capable of producing movies that are fascinating, valid, and off the beaten track. From their cell phones, they try to make some calls. The deserted streets and sidewalks are the same powder blue as the pastel sky above them-as stark as an X-ray. For the rest of this unique and imaginative film, they try to make sense of what happened-to them and to the rest of the world as they knew it. Riley and Jenai, a young American couple on vacation in Iceland wake up one morning and discover, to their horror, they are the last two living people on Earth. In Bokeh, the spectacular scenery provides a perfect pastoral backdrop for an unsettling dramatic premise. This is a land of frozen green meadows, icy gorges, rustic country churches and gushing waterfalls. I’ve never seen anything of Iceland beyond the Reykjavik airport, but when you see this movie, opening this week in limited cinemas and on the internet, you will be forced to agree-we’ve all been missing something.
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