Finding yourself is not an easy undertaking.
It doesn’t seem like that necessarily when we’re growing up; we just accept all the slings and arrows of journeying through childhood into adulthood as just the way life is but the truth is, looking back, it takes its toll.
Quite how much of a toll is on display in these three films, all of which examine what it is like to look for yourself, maybe find yourself, maybe not, but the struggle that accompanies this journey to somewhere more authentic and true.
We don’t always get it right, were that we did, but we do make a pretty good fist of attempting it at least and it’s fascinating to watch these three stories which offers revealing portraits of people make that sometimes but revelatory passage.
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Licorice Plaza is the story of Alana Kane and Gary Valentine growing up, running around and falling in love in the San Fernando Valley, 1973. [The film] is written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and stars Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Bradley Cooper, and Benny Safdie. (synopsis courtesy Flickering Myth)
Licorice Plaza opens in USA on 26 November 2021 with release set for Australia and UK in 2021.
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Believing he is a wolf trapped in a human body, Jacob (George MacKay) eats, sleeps, and lives like a wolf – much to the shock of his family. When he’s sent to a clinic, Jacob and his animal-bound peers are forced to undergo increasingly extreme forms of ‘curative’ therapies. However, once he meets the mysterious Wildcat (Lily-Rose Depp), and as their friendship blossoms into an undeniable infatuation, Jacob is faced with a challenge: will he renounce his true self for love. Wolf is written and directed by the up-and-coming filmmaker Nathalie Biancheri, director of the film Nocturnal, and the doc I Was Here previously, as well as a few other shorts. Produced by Jane Doolan and Jessie Fisk. (synopsis courtesy First Showing)
Wolf opens in USA on 3 December, following its premiere at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival.
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A young Russian Jewish immigrant living in Brighton Beach on the outskirts of Brooklyn, caught up in the tight constraints of his community, develops a close friendship with his grandfather’s new neighbors, two elderly closeted gay men who open his imagination to the possibilities of love and the realities of loss–and explores the East Village where he finds a world teeming with the energy of youth, desire, and risk. Set in the late 1980s while AIDS hammered New York City, Minyan is a powerful story of rebellion and self-discovery, sexual and spiritual awakening–and survival. Minyan is directed by producer / filmmaker Eric Steel, making his first narrative feature after directing the documentaries The Bridge and Kiss the Water previously. The screenplay is written by Daniel Pearle and Eric Steel, based on the short story from David Bezmozgis. (synopsis courtesy First Showing)
Minyan premiered at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival and appeared at a series of festivals through 2020 and 2021.