Gotham Awards Revue: "Familiar Touch"

by Nick Taylor

First, let me express how happy I am that, at least from my filmgoing corner, the Gotham nominations have encouraged more people to watch some of their lower-profile selections. The number of folks I’ve seen log Familiar Touch and Lurker and East of Wall on Letterboxd this past week has been extremely heartening. Hell, I never would’ve prioritized Familiar Touch without Nick Davis’s glowing review, I finally got our own Cláudio Alves to watch it last night, and now everyone who’s going to see it after today will obviously have done so because of me, so trust the power of good word-of-mouth reception! If anything I should have had Sarah Friedland’s film on my radar after she won the Someone to Watch award at the most recent Indie Spirits. Oh, and the three prizes the film won in the Orizzonti selection of last year’s Venice Film Festival.  

Friedland’s clearly got a great pedigree even before factoring in the Best Feature and Breakthrough Director nominations from the Gothams. Luckily for those of us who’ve caught up to Familiar Touch, this adulation is fully deserved, and the crafty, intelligent film is proof enough of her talent . . . .

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