Gianfranco Rosi Retrospective: Below Sea Level + Q&A

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Gianfranco Rosi, hosted by Sight & Sound Web Editor Nick Bradshaw.

About 190 miles southeast of Los Angeles and 120 feet below sea level, a commune of outcasts lives in the middle of the desert. This is no hippie colony, but a group of people who have turned their backs on society and want to be left alone. On this bare, arid plain, we see a mobile home here and there; a car or an impromptu house. The people who live here answer to imaginative names like Bulletproof, Insane Wayne and Bus Kenny. They kill time with messing around, doing odd jobs, talking and living. For some of them, this desolate place with no electricity or running water is a temporary address, while for others it's a permanent vacation. Everyone has his or her own reason for being here – or indeed a reason not to be somewhere else.

Below Sea Level, dir. Gianfranco Rosi, Italy/USA 2008, 110 mins