AFI Fest: ‘Fish Tank’ and ‘Woman Without a Piano’ split New Lights prize

The innaugural AFI New Lights competition prize awarded to first and second time filmmakers went to Andrea Arnold’s terrific Fish Tank and Javier Rebello’s strange but fascinating Woman Without a Piano.

Arnold’s film which won the Prix du Jury at Cannes is a stark and grim portrait of a 15-year-old girl growing up fatherless in a housing project in Essex England. First timer Katie Jarvis grabs your attention as Mia and never lets it go. It’s a gritty, natural and layered performance at once determined, but also full of humor. In a way, Fish Tank is a dark shadow of critical darling An Education, but it’s a deeper more satisfying film.

Javier Rebello’s Woman Without a Piano is a dry, absurdist, thinly plotted observation of 24 hours in the life of a lonely middle-aged woman looking to escape. It’s been compared to Tati and Chaplin, but it’s much more laid back than that. It’s is more a leisurely paced sketch that brings to mind Jim Jarmusch.

Source: Screen Daily

Filed under: Awards, Film Festivals
Tags: AFI Fest, Andrea Arnold, Fish Tank, Javier Rebello, Katie Jarvis, Woman Without a Piano