Love Story (Florian Habicht | New Zealand | 91 min.)
New York in the summer is a wonderful place to fall in love. The city is filled with dynamic locations for escapades, from the Brooklyn boardwalk to downtown dive bars, from Chinatown parks to local bodegas. Millions of strangers pass each other every day: native weirdos, everyday Americans, tourists from New Zealand, Russia and everywhere in between. It’s a huge and fast-moving metropolis, but following a chance flirtation, fate and the city will bring you back together. Although we have a reputation for being gruff, New Yorkers are the most open and interested people in the world when an adventure comes their way.

So when transient artist Florian Habicht spots on the subway a beautiful woman carrying a piece of cake on a plate, he begins to film her. And to fall in love. Unsure how to court this mysterious siren, Florian takes to the streets: he asks a wild collection of passerby how to craft this love story. Real New Yorkers respond with pleasure, surprise and distaste, but they’ve always got an opinion: what to do on a first date, how to treat her after a taxi accident, how to lure her into bed...He even enquires (while on a late-night condom run, wearing nothing more than her striped tights) how to handle the inevitable failures and sexual twists. Overseeing the entire endeavor, like a Brechtian director on stage, is Florian’s father, Skyping in his blockbuster movie advice.

As Florian and the woman continue on their romantic collaboration, all the lines of fiction and fantasy are blurred, and a natural dramatic tension develops among the madness. The perfect avant garde New York summer romantic comedy, this unique and charming film is a love story between two people, between a multitude of ideas, and between all New Yorkers and the city we live in.

- Mark Elijah Rosenberg

Slowdance
"Slowdance bring keyboard and guitar and a rhythm section that can flip from a new wave throb to a spaghetti western rumble as easily as it delivers punchy indie-pop, all anchored by vocalist Quay Quinn-Settel’s demure cheek and soprano dramatics. She recalled France Gall, and they did Stereolab, because language still counts (even the set-closing cover of New Order’s “Consent” was not without its tie to France). Says Quinn-Settel: “I learned how to read in French before learning in English. It’s half of me, it wouldn’t feel right to sing in English alone. Plus the way the language shapes the mouth changes the timber of my voice, so it’s nice to have both." - Stereogum