Picture of the movie The year of the everlasting storm © Neon
The Year of the Everlasting Storm: a collection of sketches in the time of the pandemic
March 2020. The planet is locked down, the pandemic is at its height. From Iran to Singapore, from the States to Thailand, directors around the world are, like everyone else, confined to their homes. The Year of the Everlasting Storm, a film made up of seven sketches, invites filmmakers to open up about their personal experiences of Covid.
The work will be unveiled at a Special Screening.
How do you make a film in the time of Covid-19? What happens when world-renowned artists find themselves limited in their artistic expression for an undetermined length of time? Art finds a way, in other forms.
The Year of the Everlasting Storm, a personal patchwork of a film about the pandemic by seven directors, unveils their creations, made using whatever means were available.
The Iranian Jafar Panahi offers a humourous take on things on the phone with his mother and daughter. The creator of the social drama Crimson Gold (Talaye Sorgh), which won the Jury Prize at Un Certain Regard in 2003, makes a personal entrance, in a similar vein to Taxi Téhéran in 2015.
The Singaporean Anthony Chen, who won the Caméra d’or for Ilo llo in 2013, explores the difficulties faced by a locked-down couple with a child who are working remotely. Apichatpong Weerasethakul, winner of the Palme d’or in 2010 with Uncle Boonmee who can recall his past lives (Lung Boonmee raluek chat), makes a sort of wildlife documentary, filming spiders and numerous insects very close up. The Chilean filmmaker Dominga Sotomayor Too late to die young (Tarde para morir joven, 2018), films the personal journey of a mother who wants to be present when her daughter gives birth.
The Year of the Everlasting Storm offers a detailed portrait of the pandemic, from the cyber-thriller from the American Laura Poitras, creator of the documentary Citizenfour en 2014, to the more fictional offerings from her compatriots Malik Vitthal (Imperial Dreams, 2014) and David Lowery (The Old man and the Gun, 2018).
