Sound of Metal
Director: Darius Marder Run Time: 120 min. Rating: R Release Year: 2020
Starring: Lauren Ridloff, Olivia Cooke, Paul Raci, Riz Ahmed
Country: United States
Language: English, American Sign Language and French with English subtitles
Screening as part of Awards Season Weekend at the Center. Passes include reserved seating at all in person screenings and the watch party for the 93rd Academy Awards ceremony on April 25.
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“Mesmerizing debut from writer-director Darius Marder…Ahmed’s brilliant performance coasts on a complex soundscape that resonates even in total silence”
– Eric Kohn for IndieWire
About the film:
Premiered in the Platform Prize program at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival and screened at the Zurich Film Festival and the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Earned three nominations at the 2021 Film Independent Spirit Awards and six nominations at the 93rd Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor for Riz Ahmed and Best Supporting Actor for Paul Raci.
Metal drummer Ruben begins to lose his hearing. When a doctor tells him his condition will worsen, he thinks his career and life is over. His girlfriend Lou checks the former addict into a rehab for the deaf hoping it will prevent a relapse and help him adapt to his new life. After being welcomed and accepted just as he is, Ruben must choose between his new normal and the life he once knew.
About the filmmaker:
Darius Marder is an editor, writer and director making his narrative feature directorial debut. Before Sound of Metal, he edited the Academy Award-winning documentary short Freeheld (2007) and crafted the 2009 Film Independent Spirit Award-nominated Loot, the life story of Lance Larson searching for treasures buried during WWII.
Close friends with filmmaker Derek Cianfrance, Marder co-wrote the screenplay for the 2012 film The Place Beyond the Pines and is currently working on a script for Cianfrance’s upcoming Empire of the Summer Moon, an adaptation of S.C. Gwynne’s 2011 nonfiction book on the rise and fall of the Comanche. Marder also adopted Cianfrance’s abandoned project Metalhead and reworked the film into Sound of Metal.
Co-written with his brother Abraham, the groundbreaking film is dedicated to their grandmother who lost her hearing and spent years advocating for open captions. With financing, rewrites, sound design, casting, and working on other projects, Sound of Metal took over a decade to produce. Read about Marder’s commitment to inclusive representation and the authentic story he wanted to tell in IndieWire, or listen to his interview with Mike Kaspar for Film School Radio.
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