PETER HUJAR’S DAY
A film by Ira Sachs
Ira Sachs’s new film, Peter Hujar’s Day, stars Ben Wishaw and Rebecca Hall in a richly cinematic rendering of a conversation recorded in 1974 between photographer Peter Hujar and writer Linda Rosenkrantz. Their talk that day focused on a single 24 hours in the life of Hujar, the brilliant and famously uncompromising artist who was one of the most important figures in downtown New York’s legendary cultural scene of the 70s and 80s. Set entirely in Linda’s Manhattan apartment, the film freely and imaginatively recreates that long-ago afternoon and the wonderfully discursive exchange between these two singular individuals. As the photographer vividly describes interactions with leading cultural figures of the day, including Allen Ginsberg and Susan Sontag, as well the challenges of living on limited financial resources in 70s New York, Peter Hujar’s Day transforms unexpectedly into a Bloomsday-like rumination on both an artist’s life and time itself.
HOW TO SHOOT A GHOST
A film by Charlie Kaufman
Two newly dead young people meet in the streets of Athens, amid the pulsing cityscape and the ghosts of history. One a translator, the other a photographer, they were outsiders in life; in death they struggle with the residue of their longings and mistakes. They wander the city together, finding consolation in the difficult beauty of existence and its aftermath.
Dear Shop Girl
A film by Nira Burstein
A vintage shop owner contends with a customer looking for what he'll wear when he kills himself.