PART-TIME:
shorts presented by Now Instant Image Hall
Saturday, April 5, 7:00 p.m. @ Now Instant Image Hall
Sunday, April 6, 5:00 p.m. @ Now Instant Image Hall
Now Instant and the Los Angeles Festival of Movies present PART-TIME, a collection of new moving image works drawn from the worlds of fine art, experimental film, and narrative cinema that impel the structural capacities of the form. 2025’s iteration of PART-TIME brings together artist/filmmakers Sara Cwynar, Valentin Noujaïm, Miranda Pennell, and Elisabeth Subrin in a suite of works that investigate—and push through—the political potency of enchantment.
Manal Issa, 2024
West Coast Premiere.
Director: Elisabeth Subrin
United States, 2025, 10 minutes, DCP
Filmed in Beirut on September 22, 2024, just hours before bombing escalated throughout the country, Manal Issa, 2024 presents a haunting interview with the acclaimed Lebanese French actress Manal Issa. Distilled from hours of long-distance conversations between Elisabeth in the U.S. and Manal in Lebanon over the past year, the film intimately considers the role of the actor during the unfolding global conflict. Refusing to be seen on camera, Issa reflects on questions once posed to the late French actress Maria Schneider (best known for her traumatic experience in the 1972 film Last Tango In Paris), who was a prescient critic of sexism in the film industry. In Manal Issa, 2024, an apparitional Issa takes the critique much further.
Distributor: Manifest Pictures
Prior Screenings: 2025 Doc Fortnight
Cast: Manal Issa
Crew: Screenplay by Manal Issa and Elisabeth Subrin
Cinematography: Bassem Fayad
Editing: Jenn Ruff
Man Number 4
West Coast Premiere
Director: Miranda Pennell
United Kingdom, 2024, 10 minutes, DCP
A confrontation with a disturbing photograph on social media triggers questions about what it means to be an onlooker.
Distributor: LUX
Prior Screenings: 2024 New York Film Festival (Currents)
Cast: John Smith
Sound mix: Philippe Ciompi
Oceania
Los Angeles Premiere
Director: Valentin Noujaïm.
France, 2024, 24 minutes, DCP
During the summer, 16-year-old Najib spends his days gaming until his mother, Asma, informs him of their old neighbor's passing. Intrigued, Najib takes the keys to the neighbor's apartment, uncovering an unexpected world within.
Distributor: La Belle Affaire Productions
Prior Screenings: 2025 Rotterdam Film Festival
Producers: Jérôme Blesson
Cast: Adil Bettahrat, Darina Al Joundi
Baby Blue Benzo
West Coast Premiere
Director: Sara Cwynar
United States, 2024, 22 min, ProRes
A meditation on sleeplessness and its relationship to the perennially unfulfilled desire for luxury consumption.
Producers: Sara Cwynar, Carol Cohen
Crew: Cinematographer: Wilson Cameron