DAy Night Day Night

A 19-year-old girl prepares to become a suicide bomber in Times Square. She speaks with no accent; it's impossible to pinpoint her ethnicity. We never learn why she made her decision -- she has made it already. We don't know whom she represents, what she believes in - we only know she believes it absolutely. The film strips the story down to its existential core. It focuses on microscopic movements, the smallest gestures, an economy of banal details. Inspired in part by a story in a Russian newspaper and playing off a history of Joan of Arc films, the film transpires on the girl's face. The minimalism of the face is confronted with the visual and aural noise of the city. Faith comes face-to-face with the possibility of failure.

“Impressive and terrifying. Cinematic realism pared down to hallucinatory intensity.” (A.O. Scott, New York Times)

“This is a movie that's better left unexplained, since part of what is so breathtaking is [filmmaker Julia] Loktev's strength as a storyteller and [actress Luisa] Williams's expressiveness as an actor.” (Boston Globe)