DocYard: Distant Constellation

(2018) dir. by Shevaun Mizrahi [80 minutes; DCP]

This haunted reverie drops us inside an Istanbul retirement home, where the battle-scarred residents bask in the camera's attention. A creaky-voiced woman confides her personal account of the Armenian genocide. A sweetly deluded pianist performs a composition before confessing his love. A blind photographer fiddles with his flash as he points his own camera back at us. Shevaun Mizrahi's playful, immaculately controlled film finds hypnotizing rhythms in the residents' limbo-like state. Meanwhile, outside, ominous construction equipment transforms the land.

Shevaun Mizrahi attending in person for Q&A with local filmmaker Ann Kim