A HOUSE MADE OF SPLINTERS
DIRECTOR: SIMON LERENG WILMONT
WINNER: Sundance Film Festival 2022 Best Directing
SELECTED LINKS & QUOTES
ENGLISH
VARIETY
‘A House Made of Splinters’ Review: A Heart-Tugging Documentary Portrait of Children in Limbo. Guy Lodge, Jan 23, 2022.
“An affecting diary of life continuing in the worst of circumstances (…). This is a predominantly observational affair, marked by unusual tenderness and human interest”
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Sundance Wrap-Up: 6 Movies We Like and One We Disagree on, Manohla Dargis, A.O Scott, Feb 1, 2022.
“Granted extraordinary access to his subjects, Wilmont proceeds with exemplary tact and sensitivity, weaving a heartbreaking tapestry that also glows with empathy and even shows glimmers of mischief and deligt.”
ROGER EBERT
Sundance 2022: A House Made of Splinters, Midwives, The Mission, Sirens, Jan 24, 2022.
“‘A House Made of Splinters' explains how not all casualties appear on the battlefield (...) This is an empathetic lens, one that with its respectful distance never crosses the line of mining tragedy for consumption”
SCREEN DAILY
‘A House Made of Splinters’: Thessaloniki Review, Amber Wilkinson, Mar 10, 2022.
“These are youngsters who haven’t yet learned to mask their emotions and Wilmont’s camerawork ensures that they fly direct from their faces to our hearts.”
Bazar
The 15 Must-See Movies from This Year’s Sundance Film Festival, Tomris Laffly, Feb 1, 2022.
“Wilmont proves he’s unambiguously earned the trust of his tiny subjects of colossal worries–a feat on so many different levels that concerns both outstanding filmmaking and exemplary humanism”
pov
A House Made of Splinters Review: Humanity and Heartache, Patrick Mullen, Jan 26, 2022.
“Showcasing a similarly artful, yet respectfully humane approach to observational cinema, he finds the poetry in the home.”
CINEUROPA
Review: A House Made of Splinters, Elena Lazic, Jan 1, 2022.
“Through looking at these children, and following the trajectory of three of them in particular, Wilmont suggests an outside world where years of conflict, far from remaining a mere theoretical reality, have had an all too real impact on Ukrainian society.”
Little white lies
A House Made of Splinters - first-look review, Marina Ashioti., Mar 19, 2022.
““The futures of the Lysychansk children are as precarious as ever, and Wilmont’s film depicts that ugly and complicated reality with incredible honesty, authenticity and care.”
backseat mafia
‘CPH:DOX’ Review: A House Made of Splinters, Rob Aldam, Mar 25, 2022.
“A House Made of Splinters is a hopeful and emotive picture of young lives on hold.”
The moveable fest
Sundance 2022 Review: The Effects of War Ripple Beyond the Battlefield in Simon Lereng Wilmont’s Exquisite “A House Made of Splinters”, Stephen Saito, Jan 26, 2022.
“The remarkable sensitivity that made Lereng Wilmont’s observations of his young subject in “The Distant Barking of Dogs” so arresting is on display again here”
The arts fuse
Film Reviews: Two Views from Ukraine at Sundance - Kids and Chaos, David D’Arcy, Feb 8, 2022.
“Directing and operating the camera, Wilmont is a one-man guerrilla cinema operation, watching a comforting world inside the shelter that, for these kids, seems to be everything the outside world is not.”