Little Feet preceded by Old Moon

Returning to his early roots and shooting on 16mm black-and-white stock that he had been saving for years, Alexandre Rockwell turns Little Feet into a perfectly judged miniature of deep intimacy and near-neorealist power. The film feels like a rediscovery — of what a camera can do, of what simplicity brings to a film, of what improvisation can add to the texture and flavour of a work.

The film is about children, and the story is one of utter guilelessness. A couple of young kids living in Los Angeles (played by Rockwell's children Nico and Lana), decide that they want to see "the river." Setting out alone, their encounters along the way provide the heart and soul of the movie. Moments of wordless play are interspersed with the camera exploring the city as if through the eyes of his youthful protagonists. Hearkening back to some of the great masters who have mined this idea — Vigo, Truffaut, Fellini — Rockwell finds, in these straightforward and uncomplicated exchanges, the magic of a lost world.

Little Feet starts amidst the familiarity of home, but soon moves into the foreignness of the streets of the city as our gang of little feet strays further and further away, and the search for "the river" takes them well beyond that place. Little Feet is preceded by a screening of Raisa Bonnet's Old Moon. Bonnet is a student of Rockwell's and her film, set in Puerto Rico, is another work of naturalness, sketching an almost wordless tale of the relationship between a young girl and her grandmother. Beautifully shot, it never tries to do too much within its limited running time.

PIERS HANDLING