2019 / comedy, drama / 1h 50min / directed by Kirill Mikhanovsky (as Mikhanovsky) / written by Alice Austen, Kirill Mikhanovsky / country: USA / language: English | Russian
2:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
“…Its effectiveness is predicated on some ingenious tricks with proportion and scale. Before the end you’ll be surprised at how much can happen in a single day, or in less than two hours of screen time: a funeral, a talent show, an apartment fire, a political protest. You may also be surprised at how many people can fit inside a medical transport van, the crowded, cavernous vehicle that keeps this narrative on the move.” -Justin Chang, The Los Angeles Times
““Give Me Liberty” is a jolt of a movie, at once kinetic and controlled. It’s an anarchic deadpan comedy that evolves into a romance just around the time the story explodes. It has moments of unembellished realism as well as a fictional story line that runs through the bedlam. With its contrasting modes and moods, it pushes and pulls you, rocking you back and forth like one of the van’s swaying passengers, creating an agreeable uncertainty.” -Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
“This warm, fiercely independent comedy-drama eschews anything resembling formula in favor of a boisterous and freewheeling joyride drawn from Mikhanovsky’s own experience as the driver of a wheelchair-accessible transport vehicle. Shortly after moving from Moscow to Milwaukee (and several years before becoming a professional filmmaker), Mikhanovsky was entrusted with one of those enormous, elevator-equipped vans designed to get people with disabilities from point A to point B — during which time he discovered a wealth of amusing characters and situations seldom or never depicted on-screen.” -Peter Debruge, Variety
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