Twelve-year-old Jesse Damrosch is a witness to how his parents’ marriage is falling apart. Throughout his childhood, he has borne the weight of their failed parenting with seemingly calm stoicism. Yet, imperceptibly, he is seething inside as a panopticon of political and family incidents pass by him on their way to becoming memories. An only child’s meditative, impressionistic account of an American family’s rise and fall over 20 years.

“Ricky D’Ambrose is the director-writer of this clever (maybe too clever), spare, experimental family drama. It’s a semi-autobiography, told in the form of an essay and shot with a static camera. It’s delivered as a meditation exercise that tells of an American boy’s life from his birth in 1987 to the onset of the twenty first century. The intriguing domestic drama views things as if the subject is turning the pages of a family album.” (Dennis Schwartz)

Ricky D’Ambrose, born in the USA in 1987, is a writer and director in New York City. In 2018, his first feature, NOTES ON AN APPEARANCE, premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival. In 2017, he was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film, as well as one of the decade’s Best New Filmmakers by Richard Brody of the New Yorker magazine. He has written about film and the arts for The Nation, Film Quarterly, n+1, MUBI, and Filmmaker Magazine, among others. His second feature, THE CATHEDRAL, was supported by the Venice Biennale College Cinema, and had its world premiere at the 2021 Venice International Film Festival.

Filmography (selection): 2013 PILGRIMS, 2015 SIX CENTS IN THE POCKET (both short films), 2018 NOTES ON AN APPEARANCE, 2021 THE CATHEDRAL