PERSON TO PERSON (2017) [Feature]
Michael Cera, Abbi Jacobson, Phillip Baker Hall and Tavi Gevinson headline Dustin Guy Defa's brilliantly observed homage to the characters, quirks and rhythms of street-level New York.
A record collector searches for his dream slab of vinyl, while his housemate deals with the fallout from a misguided attempt at revenge porn. A grizzled tabloid reporter leads a new recruit on her first investigation. An ageing clock repairman hangs out with his pals. A wide-eyed teenager tries to work out what she wants from life.
From these five disparate threads, filmmaker Dustin Guy Defa (whose short film of the same name screened at MIFF in 2014) has woven an irrepressibly wry and endearing mosaic of everyday life in America's city of cities. A low-key masterpiece of character quirk, narrative interplay and whip-smart editing, all shot on 16mm, Person to Person is a feature debut of constant and unexpected delights that marks Defa out as a true talent to watch.
'A tenderly dramatic and gently loopy Brooklyn street poem … [filled with] bittersweet hands-on humanism.' – New Yorker