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A Night of Knowing Nothingdocumentary

A Night of Knowing Nothing

2021

Payal Kapadia

Documentary, Voice: Bhumisuta Das

7.1

127

Documentary A university student in India, writes letters to her estranged lover, while he is away. Through these letters, we get a glimpse into the drastic changes taking place around her. Merging reality with fiction, dreams, memories, fantasies and anxieties, an amorphous narrative unfolds.

	Media	Author	Review
		Siddhant Adlakha IndieWire	"This abstract documentary about the purpose of modern Indian university is in many ways one of the best student films ever made"
		Phuong Le The Guardian	"Kaleidoscopic doc is cinephilia at its best (...) The film adds a textural dimension to the images, most of which are moulded into a grainy, black-and-white analogue look (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"
		David Katz The Film Stage	"I's worth stating how visually luscious 'A Night of Knowing Nothing' is. The black-and-white cinematography is crystalline, treated to look more scuzzy-verité than it may've been in reality"
		Lawrence Garcia AV Club	"Promising debut (...) Kapadia's method is allusive and fragmentary, almost diaristic in its intimacy and evocation of personal feeling (...) Watching [it], we too get the feeling that we're stumbling in the dark"
		Jessica Kiang Variety	"There is a disconnect between the woozy mood and the sharp, still-raw events to which it refers, and this gives the film its peculiar power."
		Dustin Chang Screen Anarchy	"A tapestry of grainy 16mm, archival and surveillance cam footage, beautifully capturing the spirit of youth and their undying idealism in the chaotic, uncertain times in which we live"
		Marta Bałaga Cineuropa	"An experience one witnesses from a safe distance – the violence shown in black-and-white, however heated, always feels a bit further away"

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