OKCMOA Film: The Year of the Everlasting Storm

A love letter to cinema, shot across the US, Iran, Chile, China and Thailand, by seven of today’s most vital filmmakers. New life in the old house. A breakaway, a reunion. Surveillance and reconciliation. An unrecognizable world, in the year of the everlasting storm.

“The marvelous omnibus The Year Of The Everlasting Storm approaches the Covid-19 pandemic not so much as a physical event but, rather, as a state of being, presenting a series of poetic sequences that capture the anxiety, uncertainty and isolation. The film’s seven esteemed directors approach a difficult subject with grace and humility, resisting the impulse for sweeping proclamations in order to pinpoint the small human moments that endured even during these dark times. Filmed across several continents, Everlasting Storm features, among others, two festival veterans (Jafar Panahi, This is Not a Film; Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives) and an Oscar-winning documentarian (Laura Poitras, Citizenfour). Consisting of three non-fiction segments and four narrative instalments, the film is refreshing in its understated modesty. If anything, the shorter running time seems to energize the directors, who tell miniature stories with a minimum of fuss but careful attention to the emotional fallout of life under quarantine.