Feb 16th 2024

A STILL, SMALL VOICE (2023)

(Luke Lorentzen, 2023, DCP, 93 min)

A residency program for aspiring chaplains at the Mt. Sinai hospital in pandemic-besieged New York City is the setting of Luke Lorentzen’s A STILL, SMALL VOICE, one of 2023’s most remarkable nonfiction films. The film tracks Mati, a determined young aspiring palliative care chaplain, over the course of a year in which the emotional and physical demands of patients, supervisors, and the American medical system at large take their toll. Director Lorentzen (who also handles camera, sound, and editing) constructs vivid scenes in which conflicting sentiments of care, grief, fortitude and doubt collide, balancing compassion with a scrupulous awareness of the spatial dynamics of power in the workplace. Shortlisted for the 2023 Academy Award for Best Documentary, A STILL, SMALL VOICE proves that looking carefully sometimes means looking after oneself as well as others.”It’s human and messy — and it’s divine.”
– Amy Nicholson, New York Times

“A STILL SMALL VOICE is suffused with such sensitivity, poignancy, and artistry that it’s already being hailed as one of the best documentaries of the year. . . . A profoundly piercing chronicle of an individual under pressure and an institution in crisis.”
– Anthony Kaufman, DOC10 Chicago

Presented with support from the Pritzker Pucker Studio Lab for the Promotion of Mental Health Via Cinematic Arts.

A STILL, SMALL VOICE is part of the Winter 2024 series “Looking Carefully: New Observational Documentary,” which brings together contemporary works of nonfiction cinema that depict, and enact, forms of care.

Contact The Block Museum of Art for more information: (847) 491-4000 or email us at block-museum@northwestern.edu

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