North by Current
Filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax returns to his rural Michigan hometown following the death of his infant niece and the subsequent arrest of his brother-in-law as the culprit. Using the audio-visual approaches of essay film, first-person cinema vérité, staged actions, and decades of home movies, Madsen navigates a town steeped in opioid addiction, economic depression, and religious fervor, while using the act of filmmaking to rebuild familial bonds and reimagine justice. Posing empathy as a tool for creating a more just world, North By Current does not seek to investigate a crime, but creates a relentless portrait of an enduring pastoral family, poised to reframe and reimagine narratives about incarceration, addiction, trans embodiment, and ruralness.
- Year: 2021
- Country: United States of America
- Genre: Documentary
- Studio: Field of Vision, JustFilms / Ford Foundation, Tribeca Film Institute, Sundance Institute, American Documentary, Open Society Foundations, Catapult Film Fund
- Keyword: drug addiction, addiction, rural area, incarceration, rural life
- Director: Angelo Madsen Minax
- Cast:
