If Found
2023 · 10m · USA
Directed by India Donaldson
Genres: dark comedy, drama
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic, melancholic
A woman with no concept of other people's boundaries steals a dog in an off-season beach town. The film slides from cute to disturbing while pretending nothing's changing.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Donaldson's third NoBudge appearance and she's still shooting on 16mm in the off-season — that's an artist with a thesis. A film about a woman who steals a dog deserves to look this good.
16mm in an off-season beach town, with wintry grain as the moral register — Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy inverted is a precise formal pact, and India Donaldson has range.
Shot on 16mm in an off-season beach town — the wintry grain becomes the moral register, making canine theft feel like a Bergman picture. Inverting Wendy and Lucy is structurally clever.