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Gravity and Grace

104 minutes, 2012

Hannah is about to have her third miscarriage. Working as a social worker at the Mission to Seafarers, she discovers a stowaway drifting aimlessly in the harbour, and decides to give the young man shelter in a decommissioned, cold war era nuclear fallout bunker that is being redesigned by her partner Antonia to serve as an archive dedicated to hagiographic graphology (the study of the saints through their handwriting). Hannah then retreats to a secluded cottage deep in the woods to confront pain and illumination alone.

Gravity and Grace's stark observational approach explores the inherent beauty and mystery in everydayness. Narrative threads are treated as textures, gesture takes prescience over dialogue, and light sculpted in time replace traditional redemptive plot progressions. Characters wander through events which have already happened; a stowaway already en-route, a pregnancy that has already failed. Protagonists drift toward each-other, mirror each-other, become one-another's double. Inspired by the writings of Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace's poetic, transcendental mise-en-scène is built on stillness, space and silence.

"A singular cinematic experience"

- Festival du Nouveau Cinéma

"Channeling Bela Tarr and Andrei Tarkovsky, Nagler has achieved a haunting tone throughout Gravity and Grace that will leave images and scenes in your memory long after the screening is over."

- Atlantic Film Festival