North by Current

Filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax returns to his rural Michigan hometown following the death of his infant niece and the subsequent arrest of his brother-in-law as the culprit. Using the audio-visual approaches of essay film first-person cinema vérité staged actions and decades of home movies Madsen navigates a town steeped in opioid addiction economic depression and religious fervor while using the act of filmmaking to rebuild familial bonds and reimagine justice. Posing empathy as a tool for creating a more just world North By Current does not seek to investigate a crime but creates a relentless portrait of an enduring pastoral family poised to reframe and reimagine narratives about incarceration addiction trans embodiment and ruralness.