Ballast
Feb 20 - Feb 26, 2009
(Lance Hammer, USA, 2008, 35mm, 96 min)
Sponsored by Hidmo Eritrean Cuisine
Winner of the Best Director award at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival! Voted one of Roger Ebert's "Top 20 Films of the Year." A young boy drifts through the spare flatlands of a wintry Mississippi township and a middle-aged man sits in his rural home, frozen in grief after his brother’s suicide. These striking images set in motion a riveting story of three people trying to reposition their lives after experiencing a traumatic loss. Lance Hammer has been compared to the Dardenne Brothers, for the assured hand with which he tells a delicate, quietly unfolding story using understated means and non-professionals from the Mississippi Delta.
“The one indisputably great film at Sundance ’08… (This) poetic and profound movie transcends categories and announces the arrival of a major new filmmaker.” —Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
"Four stars: One of the few American pictures of 2008 to say what it wants to say, visually and narratively, about a specific situation and part of the country, in a way that transcends regional specifics." -Chicago Tribune
"The movie is a beacon of independent filmmaking, not simply because Hammer opted more or less to self-distribute it, but because it's evident that we're a million miles away from Hollywood." -Boston Globe
"A serious achievement and a welcome sign of a newly invigorated American independent cinema." -NY Times
Watch the trailer: