Stone Cars
2014 · 14m · South Africa
Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green
Genres: coming-of-age, drama
Tones: contemplative, dark, tense
A teenage girl growing up in the shacks of Khayelitsha township in Cape Town is faced with a difficult and lasting decision in the wake of a traumatic event involving a young man in her community.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Cannes Cinéfondation, fourteen minutes, Khayelitsha township. Reinaldo Marcus Green before King Richard. The American-NYU-student-in-Khayelitsha framing always carries risk, but Green's later work confirms he can actually do this. The pedigree is real.
An early signal of a major directorial voice — Green's Cannes Cinéfondation selection from NYU Tisch brings the formal discipline of the school film to a story of post-traumatic agency in a South African township, anticipating his subsequent feature Monsters and Men.
Reinaldo Marcus Green (now of King Richard) shooting in Cape Town's Khayelitsha township with location specificity that refuses the exoticising gaze. Cinéfondation Cannes selection — the moral complexity is carried by subjects, not editorial framing.
Reviews
Green has done that and then some...incredibly mature storytelling from a 32-year-old American director working in a foreign land.
Festivals
- Festival de Cannes 2014