britspotting presents: NOTHING PERSONAL

October 26th, 2009 | By Ha Thanh |

100 Years of Solitude

How long can one be alone? NOTHING PERSONAL is Urszula Antoniak’s tender debut about two people seeking loneliness.

A young woman (Lotte Verbeek) leaves her life in Amsterdam behind and choses to hike through Ireland on her own. She enjoys her newly won freedom and independence despite of the cold, rain and other difficulties and avoids human contact by all means until one day, she meets the recluse Martin (Stephen Rea). He offers her food in exchange for help in the garden and she accepts under a few conditions: There will be no questions, no personal contact and conversation is restricted to work only. At first, everything seems to go according to their agreement, but how long can the two loners bear in their solitude, without any human warmth?

Polish director Urszula Antoniak, who lives in the Netherlands, shot her first feature film NOTHING PERSONAL in Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain. At the 62nd Locarno International Film Festival, the international co-production received the award for Best First Feature, as well as several other prizes from independent jurys. Lead actress Lotte Verbeek was awarded Best Actress.

NOTHING PERSONAL is a quiet, fascinating film about the limits of solitude which does well with little music and sparse dialogue. It captures a unique atmosphere with long, poetic landscape shots and excellent performances by Lotte Verbeek and Stephen Rea.

NOTHING PERSONAL: November, 15 – 6:30 pm – Babylon

britspotting rewind: November, 18 – 8:00 pm - Babylon

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