Valley Of Souls
After getting cancelled thanks to last year’s coronavirus lockdowns, the San Francisco International Film Festival (hereafter SFFILM) returns this year with its 2021 edition. Running from April 9-18, 2021, this year’s SFFILM mixes together online streaming and live events at the Fort Mason Center drive-in. This year’s program presents 103 films from 41 different countries. 13 of these films are World Premieres.
One of these World Premieres takes Opening Night honors at the Fort Mason Center venue. Chase Palmer’s crime drama “Naked Singularity” stars John Boyega as Casi, an impassioned public defender. His accidental stumbling onto an attempted heist leads to his vying with both dirty cops and drug cartel members for control of an impounded SUV carrying millions of dollars worth of heroin. Can he and his two friends liberate the stash without getting killed by competitors also interested in the illicit drugs?
Berlin Film Festival
Morales feature directorial debut written by and also starring Mark Duplass bowed in Berlin and earned an audience award at SXSW.
Shout! Studios has picked up the North American rights to Natalie Morales drama
Language Lessons, which also stars and is written by Mark Duplass.
Actress-turned-director Morales debuted
Language Lessons at the Berlin Film Festival and earned the audience award at the SXSW Film Festival. The film follows Adam (Duplass), whose husband surprises him with a gift of a year’s worth of weekly Spanish lessons.
But when tragedy strikes, his teacher Carino (Morales) becomes a lifeline he didn’t know he needed, and the two develop an unexpected and complicated emotional bond.
Slender but sweet.
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Platonic love between virtual strangers helps ease the pain of grief in this tender first feature from Natalie Morales, who also stars opposite co-writer Mark Duplass.
You have to wonder about the shelf life of all the compact film productions being stitched together around COVID pandemic restraints, particularly those in which the visual field is limited to computer desktops. When we finally escape the confinement of video calls for most of the social interactions outside our immediate circles, is anyone really going to hunger for the dulcet chimes of a Skype connection or the flat images of a Zoom meeting? That question aside, actress-turned-director Natalie Morales shows both resourcefulness and sensitivity in her touching first feature,