Riot
2016 · 4m · USA
Directed by Nathan Silver
Genres: coming-of-age, drama
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic
A semi-autobiographical film about a power-hungry nine-year-old who pursues filmmaking, drawing inspiration from watching news coverage of the Los Angeles riots.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
The NYFF and Locarno selections position this firmly among Silver's serious output; the subject — a child radicalized into filmmaking by media coverage of riots — is a formal argument about cinema's relationship to political violence, not mere autobiography.
Nathan Silver semi-autobiographical short about a nine-year-old wanting to film the LA riots. Silver is a real working filmmaker and the festival list (NYFF, Locarno, Rotterdam) confirms it.
Nathan Silver staging his own nine-year-old self as a power-hungry would-be filmmaker inspired by the LA riots — NYFF, Locarno, Rotterdam, True/False all picked it up. The semi-autobiographical conceit gives the film a sharp moral edge.
Festivals
- New York Film Festival 2016
- International Film Festival Rotterdam 2016
- Locarno Film Festival 2016
- True/False Film Festival 2016