“A pause is also music,” says Bill Evans—one of the most talented American jazz pianists of the 20th century. In 1961, after recording one of the most famous jazz albums, he learns a few days later of the death of a musician friend in a car accident. Evans stops playing and leaves New York, fleeing not only from heroin but also from his troubled personal relationships. The film is based on Owen Martel’s novel *The Break*, which sets the action in the dark bars and lounges of New York, and depicts Evans as if he were a ghost. Navigating between the present and the past, between sobriety and intoxication, the film deeply and subtly reveals the melancholic drama of the artist’s inner world. At the Berlinale, the film won the Silver Bear for Best Director.
Director: Grant Gee
Starring: Anders Danielsen Lie, Bill Pullman, Barry Ward, Laurie Metcalf, Valene Kane
