52 Films by Women Vol 4. 36. PORT AUTHORITY (Director: Danielle Lessovitz)
Why would a young black choreographer-performer rehearsing with a tight group (her ‘family’) and living in an apartment where she faces eviction fall for a mysterious, wounded white boy, who pretends to be living with his half-sister but is actually homeless? It is a question never satisfactorily resolved in writer-director Danielle Lessovitz’s debut feature, Port Authority , which like its hero, Wye McQueen (Leyna Bloom) has a ‘lot going on’ but never quite accounts for all of it in its plotting. It has a ticking clock. Paul (British actor Fionn Whitehead) arrives at New York City’s Port Authority bus station hoping that his half-sister, Sara (Louisa Krause) would be there to greet him. He is left un-met. Through a window, looking out onto some steps, he briefly sees a group of dancers in their own world. They are like the sub-culture skateboarders in last year’s Skate Kitchen . Paul is mesmerised by the confidence they have in their own self-expression. Inadequate words that ...