Wolf Knife

Nominated for a 2010 Gotham Award and a 2011 Independent Spirit Award, acclaimed American artist Laurel Nakadate's second feature film explores loneliness and desire through its young women on the cusp of adulthood with compassion, empathy and a good deal of jet-black humour.

A teenage girl, together with her best friend, flees the boring claustrophobia of her humdrum life in Florida to track down her father in Nashville. What they find on their journey into adulthood and independence is a kind of dark flipside to the sanitised worlds they have seen on television: a hidden nocturnal world of garish neon and sexual uncertainty charges the many encounters they have on their travels with a queasy, ominous eroticism.

With major solo shows at MOMA PS1 in New York and the Zabludowicz Collection, London, Laurel Nakadate’s work in video and photography are consolidating her reputation as a major emerging artist. She joins a growing number including Miranda July and Steve McQueen who choose to explore their interests through feature film.

Elizabeth Neilson, Director of the Zabludowicz Collection, introduces the opening screening on Thursday 8 December