It’s hard to watch “Empty Nets” and not think of “Luzzu,” the recent, poignant Sundance prizewinner from Malta: In both films, enterprising young men left in the lurch by a national financial crisis must resort to black-market fishing to, well, stay afloat.
(All we need is a third film paddling in such forbidden waters to declare a new neo-realist trend.) In “Luzzu,” the protagonist was a lifelong fisherman passionate about his trade, while Behrooz Karamizade’s lean, engrossing, Iran-set debut centers on a handy novice merely looking to make a quick buck.
In this economy, however, such differences prove immaterial.
It doesn’t matter where you’re coming from, unless you’re coming from money: You’re otherwise all sinking below the surface.Premiering in the main competition at Karlovy Vary, this is a confidently quiet, elegiac first feature from Iranian-German writer-director Karamizade — who brings a certain European arthouse…
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