Since his brilliant debut with George Washington (2000), David Gordon Green (b. 1975) has finally earned his reputation as one of the most talented filmmakers to emerge from the new American independent film scene. A child of the South, Green was born in Arkansas, raised in Texas, and studied film at the North Carolina School of the Arts, where he honed his trademark Southern Gothic style.

Green’s films are steeped in the rhythms of Southern life, coupled with a poetic lyricism that distances him from the ironic sensibility and Gen-Y affectations of his contemporaries. Instead, Green favors a nuanced, observational style that recalls the cinema of Robert Altman and Terrence Malick, to whom he is ofen compared. Indeed, like Malick, Green favors elliptical narrative and dialogue, a mode of filmmaking that depends more on mood and image than on story, and a delivers a strong sense of place, especially the natural environment.

Distinguished by their stunning cinematography and contemplative dialogue, Green's films focus on the transition from innocence to understanding, with characters who straddle the divide between childhood and adulthood, struggling to achieve emotional maturity through a growing understanding of their relationship to the world around them. The Harvard Film Archive is proud to welcome David Gordon Green for a sneak preview screening of his new film, Snow Angels.