Directed by Kirill Mikhanovsky
USA | 2019 | Fiction | 119 min
Film Source: Music Box Films
Sponsors: Anne Barbano and Michael George | Tom and Molly Roland
Vic, a transport driver for people with disabilities, is having a rough day. The boss is already busting his chops for running behind schedule when a group of fellow Russian Americans find themselves without a ride to a funeral. Meanwhile, Vic (the charismatic Chris Galust, in his first role) is desperately trying to get his regular riders to their various appointments when a race riot breaks out on his Milwaukee route. Give Me Liberty is the second feature for Russia-born director Kirill Mikhanovsky, who himself worked as a medical transport driver in Milwaukee before becoming a filmmaker. Mikhanovsky’s experiences lend the film a lived-in authenticity, as does the casting of actors who have disabilities, including Lauren “Lolo” Spencer as an African American woman with ALS who develops a tentative relationship with Vic. Give Me Liberty is an absurdly funny film, in a style reminiscent of the Safdie brothers’ Good Time and Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, which also examines racial tensions in one of America’s most segregated cities. ~LB