Trailer for Slamdance Winner WITHOUT

Well here we are, post Sundance hubbub and a lot of films that premiered there are now well on their way to international fests and releases later this year and next thanks to a healthier sales market than we've seen in recent fests. Meanwhile Park City's alt-cousin, Slamdance has also come to a close and Mark Jackson and Jessica Dimmock's debut feature Without has been bestowed a Special Jury mention for Joslyn Jensen's lead performance. So what is Without and why should you be interested?

The Stranger's Charles Mudede says:

[Without] really should be in competition at Sundance--they really dropped the ball on that one... The film will be recognized as a erotic and philosophical masterpiece of our moment.

The plot synopsis from the film's official site:

Without is set on a remote wooded island. Here, a young woman, Joslyn, becomes
caretaker to an old man trapped in a wheelchair and in a vegetative state.
She has no cell signal, no access to the Internet and is only a year removed
from high school. Processing a hefty personal grief, Joslyn vacillates between
finding solace in the old man's company and feeling fear and suspicion towards
him. As the days wear on, her isolated routine devolves into a struggle
with sexuality, guilt and loss.

The trailer suggests we could have another fine entry from the emerging New American Minimalism; nuanced, lush in natural beauty, an undercurrent of tension and alienation jostling the edges. The films of Kelly Reichardt and Bradley Rust Gray's The Exploding Girl come to mind, perhaps even the slightly more commercial Blue Valentine; All spiritual successors to the likes of Monte Hellman? All right, so that's a lot of hyperbole, but whichever way you slice it, Jackson and Dimmock's film appears to offer an interesting take on the perils and (in)human(e) disconnect of our increasingly wireless world, and I for one will be mighty curious to see where it goes next. Okay, finally, the trailer...