SHIT YEAR New Auteurs

Santa Cruz filmmaker Cam Archer makes his feature film debut at AFI FEST this year (his short film BOBBYCRUSH played to acclaim in 2006) Sacrificing his signature lush color landscapes, Archer has embraced black and white photography for this, his second full-length feature The aesthetic choice has produced a bold cinematic vision, combining sometimes experimental, meditative moments with striking architecture and topography In a landmark performance, Ellen Barkin plays the lead as a heartbroken actress who is exiling herself into early retirement. At once stunning and ravaged, Barkin inhabits the role with smoldering, expansive aplomb. Not a classically morose depiction of love lost, the film instead chooses to plumb the whole body of sexual despair and rejection As she ambles around her isolated countryside home, the actress battles external and internal forces pulling her back into life. The resulting film is a fiercely original and independent vision from one of America’s leading young cineastes.