faceoff Racing
2016 · 1m
Directed by Florian Kaltenbach
Tones: contemplative
A sports film capturing the core energy of racing through the mental challenges of the sport, part of the award-winning faceoff series.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A contemplative sports film about racing's mental game sounds like festival-circuit comfort food, but Kaltenbach's part of an award-winning series, which means either he's figured out something nobody else has or he's very good at playing the game—I need to see what he actually did differently here.
Kaltenbach situates himself within the faceoff series' established lineage, and that pedigree suggests a filmmaker aware of how to compose meaning through restraint; one minute demands absolute economy of gesture and image.
A 60-second sports meditation is a formal constraint that forces the director to choose one elemental truth about racing psychology—and that singular choice, whatever it is, will either justify the whole thing or reveal exactly where the concept breaks.
Reviews
faceoff Racing is the latest instalment of the award-winning series of sport films by the title faceoff. Each film aims to capture to core energy of the sport by telling a story about the mental challenges.
faceoff Racing is part of my personal work by the title faceoff, a series of sport films reflecting the core theme of the sport portrayed.