Storms Named After People
From the Archives
•
29-Jul-2020
Jess is alone in Tarpon Springs, Florida on Christmas Eve. “Storms Named After People,” directed by Sarah Ballard, is a poetic glimpse into the headspace and disaffection of a young woman skulking around a small tourist town avoiding her father. She tries to delay and defer — instead of returning her dad’s texts after she lands, she lies about a flight delay and then a cancellation. We don’t learn much about Jess other than she’s at odds with her surroundings and loved ones (one particularly striking image of disconnection finds Jess sitting alone in a kitschy, brightly lit bakery looking depressed). After ambling through town debating whether to respond to her dad, she instead meets up with a friend and continues her wanderings. Ballard’s wispy, free-floating narrative is mostly absent of backstory or dialogue, but locks into a mood and delivers rich feelings from its quiet vacation setting and gloomy youth.
Up Next in From the Archives
-
Season 1 | Love in the Mile-End
A group of young people in Montreal participate in a DIY dating show. Maurane presents “Love in the Mile-End,” a lo-fi satire of reality TV where contestants compete for a $500 prize by answering a series of questions about their love life. It’s an eccentric cast of skaters, unemployed lovers, co...
-
Babywatch
Through a series of witness depositions, a detective aims to uncover the truth about the death of a young woman at the hands of her church. The enigmatic “Babywatch,” by director Eli Powers, is loosely based on a real story from the early 1990’s involving a woman’s mental breakdown and a locked m...
-
The Big Parade
As the town of Sandwich, Massachusetts prepares for their annual parade, unsettling occurrences begin to threaten the event. Harrison Fishman directs “The Big Parade,” a lo-fi comic oddity that goes where it wants to go — it’s a gathering of small-town oddballs, mysterious butterflies, and musica...
