Part of "A More Perfect Union: The Films of Roberto Minervini," a complete retrospective of the Italian-born director's features running from June 13-23 at 2220 Arts + Archives and Brain Dead Studios. Copies of Textur #7: Roberto Minervini, a monograph published for the 2024 Viennale, will be available to purchase at each screening.
About Low Tide:
Bearing traces of Huck Finn and Antoine Doinel, Low Tide’s nameless adolescent hero (Daniel Blanchard) runs errands and cares for his substance-abusing mother (Melissa McKinney). Roberto Minervini’s second feature casts nonprofessionals to magnificently truthful effect, and the writer/director demonstrates his characteristic sensitivity for small Texas towns and their resilient denizens. Blanchard is seldom off-screen, as Minervini follows him on his “rounds” from the nursing home where his mother works to a slaughterhouse, but also to the river to catch frogs and fish. Minervini does not mute the hardships of his protagonist’s life, nor does he deny him the right to be 12 years old.
About Stop the Pounding Heart:
Sara (Sara Carlson, playing herself) is part of a devout Christian goat-farming family with 12 children, all home-schooled and raised with strict moral guidance from the Scriptures. Set in a rural community that has remained isolated from technological advances and lifestyle influence—no phones, TVs, computers, or drunken-teen brawls—the subtly narrative film follows Sara and Colby, two 14-year-olds with vastly different backgrounds who are quietly drawn to each other. In Minervini’s intimate documentary-style portrait—the third in the Italian-born filmmaker’s Texas trilogy—Sara’s commitment to her faith is never questioned. It’s the power of the director’s nonintrusive handheld-camera style that reveals his protagonist’s spiritual and emotional inner turmoil about her place in a faith that requires women to be subservient to their fathers before becoming their husbands’ helpers. By also presenting an authentic, impartial portrayal of the Texas Bible Belt, Minervini allows humanity and complexity behind the stereotypes to show through.
About the book:
The seventh edition of the ongoing publication series Textur is dedicated to the Italian-born director Roberto Minervini, who has been based in the USA for more than 20 years. Shifting gently between feature film and documentary, his films deal with the socio-political complexities of his adopted country and are interested in the people who otherwise remain invisible, marginalized or unheard. In addition to a major interview, the volume edited by Eva Sangiorgi and James Lattimer contains a conversation between the Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Frammartino and Minervini, texts by his editor Marie-Hélène Dozo and his producers Paolo Benzi and Denise Ping Lee, exclusive images, sketches and notes from his film shoots as well as contributions by Mark Peranson, Payal Kapadia, Jessica Sarah Rinland, Rachael Rakes, Goffredo Fofi, and Pablo Marín.
About the director:
Roberto Minervini is an Italian-born film director, who lives and works in the U.S. He is widely considered to be one of the world’s most prominent auteurs of narrative documentaries, which combine dramatized and observational elements. In 2007, he moved to Texas, where he directed three feature films, The Passage, Low Tide, and Stop the Pounding Heart, a Texas Trilogy that focused on rural communities in the American South. He then went on to direct two feature films set in Louisiana, The Other Side and What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire?, shifting to the political realm of American society and touching on social injustice. In more recent years, he has begun to produce the work of other visionary filmmakers through his production company Pulpa Film, including Payal Kapadia’s first fiction film All We Imagine as Light and Lisandro Alonso’s Eureka. Minervini’s latest film, The Damned—which won the Un Certain Regard Best Director Prize at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival—is his first fiction film set in the 1860s during the American Civil War.
TRT: 192 min
"Stop the Pounding Heart transcends both the red state-blue state split and limited, didactic ideas of cinematic realism." —A.O. Scott, The New York Times
"Quietly impressive.. Minervini's achievement in [Stop the Pounding Heart] is to let us see what's exceptional, rather than just odd." —Jonathan Romney, Screen International
"Low Tide is the logical continuation of Minervini’s survey of his Texas homeland and reveals the European influence of works by the Dardenne brothers and Ken Loach. While telling us about social coldness, this intense and intimate film is full of warmth itself." —Michael Pekler, Viennale
"A modest film made with an authenticity that commands respect, Stop the Pounding Heart adopts fundaments of neorealism and cinema verite to consider issues of faith, family and personal conviction." —David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
"Low Tide is admirable in its drive to film in unseen places and with forgotten people, laudable in its ability to encourage empathy for tenuous American existences. Minervini fully exploits the freedoms afforded him, and understands with a canny, intuitive sense where his real really is." —Jeff Reichardt, Reverse Shot
(Available to download after screening date)