Anna
2016 · 24m · Israel
Directed by Or Sinai
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, sensual
On the hottest day of summer, a mother in her thirties finds herself alone for the first time in years when her son stays with his father; she wanders her small desert town seeking physical connection and intimacy.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Twenty-four minutes. Vimeo Staff Pick Premiere. A woman in her thirties, alone for the first time in years, hunting desire in a small desert town. Inverting the male gaze with an active middle-aged female protagonist. Or Sinai is operating at the level where I trust the description.
Or Sinai casts Evgenia Dodina as an unapologetic desert-town hunter of desire — a Staff Pick that inverts the male gaze without announcing it, in the lineage of Claire Denis' bodies-in-heat cinema.
Sinai's cinematographic decision to hold steady in close-up while Dodina navigates desire without apology is a master class in restraint — the camera refuses to moralize so the audience has to.
Festivals
- Cannes Film Festival – Cinéfondation 2016, 1st Prize Cinéfondation
- Toronto International Film Festival 2016, Honourable Mention