MA

In a surreal and controversial vision of Mother Mary's life, choreographer Celia Rowlson-Hall makes her feature-length directorial debut with a reinterpretation of Mary's pilgrimage - in cowboy boots through the Nevada desert. Mary stays in motels, has a vision in front of the television and leaves miracles in her wake. On the way she meets a man who will take her to Las Vegas, the City of Sin where the Savior is to be born. MA is a transgressive experiment, meditation on the images of women and silent dance cinema. The director, who also stars as the lead, builds Mary's story with postmodernist eloquence using the language of modern dance and popculture iconography. The human forms do all the "talking" through gestures and mimicry with support from carefully framed shots. The absence of dialogue stirs the senses, and leads us to imagine a new ending to this familiar journey. The virgin mother gives birth to our savior, but is also challenged to save herself, summarizes the director of one of this year's most original debuts.