Peter Hujar’s Day

Another gem from Ira Sachs – icon of American independent cinema and director of Passages (23rd NH), Frankie, and Keep the Lights On. This time, Sachs transports us to 1970s New York and into the apartment of Linda Rosenkrantz. Played by a luminous Rebecca Hall, the writer spends the day with photographer Peter Hujar, portrayed with quiet brilliance by Ben Whishaw. Hujar recounts an ordinary day – nothing more, nothing less – which becomes a window into his inner life and a portrait of the city’s artistic underground. The script was born from life itself: the film is based on a reel-to-reel recording made fifty years ago, its transcript discovered in a New York library. The visual layer, meanwhile, is Sachs’ own creation – a poetic reimagining in which the characters are staged in poses drawn from Hujar’s own photographs, granting the film a rare intimacy. Sachs also lingers on the stylish interiors, choreographing movement through space as deliberately as dialogue. The sensuality of the film lies not just in its beautiful English but in the grainy texture of long 16mm takes. Peter Hujar’s Day is a love letter – to photography, to film, and to its subjects, caught in a moment just before the AIDS epidemic would change New York forever.