#426 - Charlotte Wells & Frankie Corio on Aftersun

We welcomed director Charlotte Wells and actress Frankie Corio to NYFF60 to present and discuss Aftersun, a Main Slate selection of this year’s festival, moderated by NYFF Artistic Director, Dennis Lim. In one of the most assured and spellbinding feature debuts in years, Scottish director Charlotte Wells has fashioned a textured memory piece inspired by her relationship with her dad, taking place over the course of a brooding weekend at a coastal resort in Turkey. The charismatic Paul Mescal and naturalistic newcomer Francesca Corio fully inhabit Calum and Sophie, a divorced father and his daughter often mistaken for brother and sister, who share a close and loving bond that creates an entire world unto itself. Wells employs an unusual and gorgeous aesthetic that brings us into the interior space of this parent and child, even as she judiciously withholds details, an approach that finally grants the film a singular emotional wallop. Aftersun reimagines the coming-of-age narrative as a poignant, ultimately ungraspable chimera, informed by the present as much as the past. Winner of the French Touch Prize of the Jury at this year’s Cannes Festival. An A24 release. Aftersun opens at Film at Lincoln Center on Friday, October 21st. Tickets are now on sale.