No Sleep Till

Alexandra Simpson · 2024 · 93 minutes
July 9 · Regal Riviera · 7:00 p.m.

Winner of a Special Mention from the jury at Venice Film Festival Critics’ Week and a selection in New Directors/New Films at Lincoln Center.

“An engrossing, teasingly fragmented portrait of different Floridians readying themselves (or not!) for a coming hurricane. As palm trees shudder against the ominous sky, these weather-watchers seem like emissaries from the apocalypse.” – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

“Mesmerizing. Visually pinpoints Lana del Rey-core, ‘Summertime Sadness’ USA with such identifiable precision. Never short on vibes.” -Olivia Popp, Cineuropa

When the coastal Florida town of Atlantic Beach is threatened by an impending hurricane, locals prepare for a mandatory evacuation. But as the last tourists depart and residents board-up their homes, a few wanderers feel strangely compelled to remain.

Among them are two-long time friends who embrace willful ignorance in pursuit of their dream gig, a local teenager who bikes alone through the darkening night, and an obsessive storm chaser who recognizes this might be the opportunity of his career. As if haunted by the soon-to-be ghost of their hometown, they venture into the night and face the threats that await them with fascination and dread.

Ominous and dream-like in equal measure, the debut from Alexandra Simpson—and the latest feature from the thriving collective Omnes Films (Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, Eephus, Ham on Rye)—is a hypnotic take on the disaster movie.

Programmer’s Note

One of the highlights of FILM FEST KNOX 2024 was Eephus by Carson Lund. The film takes place more or less in real time, observing the final game of an adult rec league before their beloved baseball field is torn up to make room for a new middle school. It’s a hangout movie par excellence, the kind of film Richard Linklater might’ve made in the ’90s, where the characters and conversations — the vibe — are more important than the outcome of the game.

No Sleep Till is the latest release from Omnes Films, the collective of filmmakers who are responsible for Eephus, along with a growing number of fascinating movies that seem uninterested in traditional plots, genres, and forms. First-time feature filmmaker Alexandra Simpson has said that No Sleep Till began with memories of the sounds of thunder from her childhood vacations in Florida, and, indeed, this movie is as close as you’ll get in a theater to standing outside, watching an evening storm roll in.

For local filmmakers: Omnes is modeling a fruitful approach to regional film production. They’re worth paying close attention to. — Darren Hughes