Aftersun
(Charlotte Wells, 2022, 102 min, USA/UK, English, DCP)
In Charlotte Wells’ superb and searingly emotional debut film, Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories real and imagined fill the gaps between miniDV footage as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the man she didn’t.
— Winner of the French Touch Jury Prize at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, and the 2023 National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director
“Aftersun is about what it means to move through life—falling in love, raising children, making art—knowing that there are ghosts one will never shake but forever carry, ghosts so real that we can close our eyes and see them there before us, unchanging figments who elude our embrace.” – ReverseShot
“Wells’s movie ripples and shimmers like a swimming pool of mystery; the way Wells captures mood and moment, never labouring the point or forcing the pace… With remarkable confidence, she just lets her movie unspool naturally, like a haunting and deceptively simple short story.” – The Guardian
“Rare and special is a film capable of summoning this much poignancy: a feeling which lingers well beyond the film’s final, achingly moving moments on screen.” – Empire
