2024 - 69th Edition

Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point

Tyler Taormina

United States

- 2024

Christmas dinners have always been the ideal place to explore family dynamics through the lens of tragicomedy. Following its presentation at the Cannes Directors' Fortnight, Tyler Taormina invites us to the Christmas Eve of the Blasanos, an Italian-American family who gather for what could be their last celebration in their Long Island home. Its choral style and the combination of narrative tones sustain the expressive force of this film, which features a particular cast headed by Michael Cera and the duo of Francesca Scorsese and Sawyer Spielberg. A couch full of teary-eyed people watching old VHS tapes is the perfect image to evoke the nostalgia of the happy years, now slightly tarnished by domestic tensions, the shadow of adulthood and the usual loneliness of the forgotten ones on the holidays.

Tyler Taormina

Film director born in 1990 in New York, USA, and based in Los Angeles. He studied screenwriting and works as a writer, director and producer. In 2016 he directed the medium-length film ‘Wild Flies’, before taking the leap into the documentary feature format with ‘Ham on Rye’ (2019), which premiered internationally at the Locarno Film Festival. ‘Happer’s Comet’ (2022), his second feature film, was selected for the Berlin Film Festival and won the special jury prize at Bafici, before becoming part of Seminci’s Time of History programme.His work explores vast ensemble casts and draws influence from 60s European art cinema and 90s kid’s television. His latest film, ‘Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point’ (2024), was premiered at Quinzaine at the Cannes Film Festival 2024.

O.V. in English subtitled in Spanish