This week I am recommending three new films (one of which I went very long on), a Palestinian documentary, and a cinematic self-portrait of the singular Agnès Varda.
I was a big fan of Tayarisha Poe’s Selah and the Spades, which was bought by Amazon and then dumped on their streaming service during quarantine without much fanfare, so I was really excited last year when she had a new film premiering at SXSW. Unfortunately, her new film has suffered the same fate and is being dropped on VOD by Paramount without, as far as I can tell, any theatrical release. Which is a real shame because like her previous film, The Young Wife is a bold and visually ambitious film, and I sure wish I could have seen it on the big screen. Poe has re-teamed once again with cinematographer Jomo Fray (who lensed last year’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt), to bring her sumptuous cinematic vision to life, and the result is a film filled with unforgettable imagery that feels distinctly hers.
Poe started working on this film in 2019, and of course between then and now there have been huge changes in the world. I love what she wrote in her director’s statement:
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