New York Film Festival 2021 Final Night (and a little late):

“Letting a Moment Breathe and Alternate Programming” PARALLEL MOTHERS/ARREBATO. A few years back, my mother and my sister and I were at the Sundance Film Festival and saw our final film of the festival and it was... not our favorite (I try to not trash anyone’s work because making a film is tough and a labor of love and requires so much hard work on the part of many individuals... that said, it’s good to know why one doesn’t like a piece of art, and why one does specifically - often I’m in the latter camp liking everything as I am a self-professed “movie slut”). Anyway, this film was the film that none of us were too fond of, so the next day, my sister flew home and my mom and I went to see some Alternate Programming (we saw a beautiful film outside of the festival at a local theatre that acted as a balm to the intentionally drab film we had seen the day before... yet again, so happy for the filmmakers and everyone affiliated with the Sundance... GO YOU! You’re amazing, even if we didn’t love your movie (you can’t win ‘em all). Anyway, I saw ARREBATO outside of NYFF at Anthology Film Archives (my first time) and it was STUNNING (reminded me a little bit of Martin - another favorite), and then I saw my last film of this year’s festival, PARALLEL MOTHERS, and it typifies one of my favorite things about, well, both these films... they allow the moment to breathe - they don’t rush, they just are. Don’t we wish we could all be like that?