Tower

Derek, a thirty-four-year-old man who lives in his parents’ basement, is a puzzling specimen to say the least. He has no career per se, though he is an aspiring computer animator and works construction part-time for his uncle. Solitary but not friendless, he ventures out alone to clubs in the evenings looking to connect with women. He’s both impulsive and cautious, and much of the time he appears slightly perplexed, intently chewing on his thoughts. Derek is not socially awkward; he’s socially peculiar. He suddenly finds himself in uncertain territory when he falls into an intimate relationship with a woman he meets.

In the presence of Kazik Radwanski.

One of the most appealing aspects of TOWER is the way Radwanski frames his subject, in what has become his defining style: tight, unflinching close-ups and a total absence of long shots, creating an atmosphere that is intense and intimate. Fascinating and slyly funny, TOWER establishes Radwanski’s uncanny and incisive human portraiture and his finely honed approach on a larger canvas. (Agata Smoluch Del Sorbo)