The Year of the Everlasting Storm

This COVID cinematic omnibus, consists of seven films made by directors from different parts of the world, begins with the telling quote from Robert Bresson,One does not create by adding but by taking away. The originators of the Year of the Perpetual Storm attempt to treat pandemic-imposed limitations as existential and artistic opportunities. Features appear alongside experimental documentaries and fiction while precisely composed shots abut recordings from FaceTime or Zoom. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the panoply opens with a story by Jafar Panahi, a veteran of isolation and house arrest, who looks at the crisis with stoic calm: just another duel of fear and death with a thirst for freedom and life. The other directors deal with the pandemic in various ways, observing its impact on the family, but also on cybersecurity, revealing the power of other, invisible but equally deadly viruses. The compilation ends with Apichatpong Weerasethakul's breathtaking miniature, or rather installation. The poetic, nocturnal tale of an illegal gathering under fluorescent lamps takes us into a different dimension of cinema and reflections on the pandemic.