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The National - Release Short Film, 'I Am Easy To Find'.
The National : Release Short Film, 'I Am Easy To Find'.
13th May 2019

The 24-minute film directed by Academy Award-nominated Mike Mills (20th Century WomenBeginners) and starring Academy Award Winner Alicia Vikander (The Danish GirlEx-Machina) featuring new music by The National is now available on www.iameasytofind.com.  The film was inspired by the band’s forthcoming album of the same name which will be released on this Friday, 17th May.

Special bonus features are also available at www.iameasytofind.com; a Director's Commentary with Mike Mills, a commentary by The National's Matt Berninger and album contributor Caris Besser, and the Q&A from the film's screening at Beacon Theatre, NY in April which was hosted by Julien Baker.

On September 3, 2017, director Mike Mills emailed Matt Berninger to introduce himself and in very short order, the most ambitious project of the National’s 20-year career was born and plans for a hard-earned vacation died.  The Los Angeles-based filmmaker was coming off his third feature, 20th Century Women, and was interested in working with the band on... something.  A video maybe.  Berninger, already a fan of Mills’ films, not only agreed to collaborate, he essentially handed over the keys to the band’s creative process.

The two projects are, as Mills calls them, “Playfully hostile siblings that love to steal from each other”—they share music and words and DNA and impulses and a vision about what it means to be human in 2019, but don’t necessarily need one another.

The result is I Am Easy To Find, a 24-minute film by Mills starring Alicia Vikander, and I Am Easy To Find, a 68-minute album by the National.  The former is not the video for the latter; the latter is not the soundtrack to the former.  The movie was composed like a piece of music; the music was assembled like a film, by a film director.  The frontman and natural focal point was deliberately and dramatically sidestaged in favour of a variety of female voices, nearly all of whom have long been in the group’s orbit.  It is unlike anything either artist has ever attempted and also totally in line with how they’ve created for much of their careers.  The film, shot all on location near Pomoma, CA, took only 5 days to shoot, but is comprised of 164 scenes.  The production design is sparse and minimal, consisting only of one chair, a bed, rug, and couch used over and over in the film.  Beautifully shot by Daniel Voldheim and edited for about 8 months by Aaron Beckum. 

You can pre-order on gatefold 2x black vinyl, tri-fold deluxe 3x coloured (yellow, red, grey) vinyl, and CD via 4AD here +
You can pre-save, and pre-order, on all platforms here +

I Am Easy To Find was produced by Mike Mills and The National at Long Pond, Hudson Valley, NY.

Read more about I Am Easy To Find  here.

The National will be touring throughout 2019. A full list of live dates can be found on americanmary.com

Check out I Am Easy To Find singles ‘Hairpin Turns’‘Light Years’and ‘You Had Your Soul With You’