Queens Drive-In: Notturno

Gianfranco Rosi, whose last film, the Oscar-nominated documentary Fire at Sea (NYFF54), won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, returns with an immersive work of nonfiction. Shot over the course of three years along the borders of Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria, and Lebanon, Notturno (Nocturne) is a nighttime ramble through a region of the world rocked and shattered by catastrophe and violence. With spellbinding visual compositions and heartrending attention paid to the plight of those who have been living through the rise of ISIS in the vacuum created by the U.S. invasion, Rosi leads the viewer through a play rehearsal in a psychiatric ward; on the quiet journeys of snipers, soldiers, and fishermen; and to a classroom where children relate harrowing testimonies of atrocities they’ve witnessed. In these border worlds, people go about their lives while constantly haunted by a pervasive existential threat; Rosi’s extraordinary film is a reminder that people carry on, every day, even under the darkest circumstances.