Busan


The Holy Boy

The Holy Boy

Paolo Strippoli puts his own spin on the intertwining of grief, faith and horror in the solidly intriguing ‘The Holy Boy’.

Silent Friend

Silent Friend

Rare is the film able to turn a meditation on time, nature, neuroscience and interspecies connections into a memorable, stirring adventure of ideas like Ildiko Enyedi’s ‘Silent Friend’, a totally original, time-spanning story that closed Venice competition with a bang.

Newport & the Great Folk Dream

Newport & the Great Folk Dream

Loaded with previously unseen archive footage, Robert Gordon’s engaging documentary ‘Newport & the Great Folk Dream’ looks beyond star names like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez to explore the musical, social and political roots of Newport Folk Festival.

Who Is Still Alive

Who Is Still Alive

Nicolas Wadimoff returns to the topic of Gaza with the experimental documentary ‘Who Is Still Alive’, an intellectually intriguing Venice premiere.

Duse

Duse

An illuminating, soul-deep portrait of the great Italian stage actress Eleanora Duse, gloriously played by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, is interwoven with the rise of Fascism in Italy following the First World War.

The Voice of Hind Rajab

The Voice of Hind Rajab

A tremendously moving reenactment of a real tragedy that took place in Gaza, Kaouther Ben Hania’s ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’ masterfully integrates fiction and reality in a grief-stricken lament for a child in mortal danger.

Memory of Princess Mumbi

Memory of Princess Mumbi

Filmed in Kenya, Damien Hauser’s wildly inventive retro-futuristic fairy tale ‘Memory of Princess Mumbi’ combines dazzling AI visuals with bittersweet meditations on love and loss, cinematic fantasy and human reality.

A House of Dynamite

A House of Dynamite

Kathryn Bigelow turns her prodigious talent for edge-of-seat action thrillers to the most terrifying horror show of them all: a rogue nuclear missile is headed straight for the USA and officialdom discovers the absurd inadequacy of available responses, in ‘A House of Dynamite’, a dazzling dark fantasy that leaves viewers shaken.

Silent Rebellion

Silent Rebellion

Marie-Elsa Sgualdo explores women’s rights in the 1940s in her handsomely mounted, quietly intriguing feature debut ‘Silent Rebellion’.

A Year of School

A Year of School

Laura Samani deals with high school tribulations in her deceptively breezy sophomore directorial effort ‘A Year of School’.

Past Present Continuous

Past Present Continuous

Acclaimed artists and filmmakers Morteza Ahmadvand and Firouzeh Khosrovani (‘Radiograph of a Family’) pool their talents in ‘Past Present Continuous’, an emotionally-charged yet formally distanced creative documentary that combines experiences of Iranians in exile from their country.

The Testament of Ann Lee

The Testament of Ann Lee

Amanda Seyfried is on a mission from God in writer-director Mona Fastvold’s audacious, ambitious and mostly excellent avant-garde feminist musical about a real-life 18th century messianic female religious leader ‘The Testament of Ann Lee’.

The Wizard of the Kremlin

The Wizard of the Kremlin

Russian history whips by onscreen in Olivier Assayas’s often fascinating, at times clumsy English-language drama ‘The Wizard of the Kremlin,’ detailing the rise of Putin (Jude Law) and authoritarian power through the eyes of a brilliant, unscrupulous young ideologue.

The Last Viking

The Last Viking

Anders Thomas Jensen teams up with Mads Mikkelsen and Nikolaj Lie Kaas once again for the hilariously moving dark comedy ‘The Last Viking’.

Rose of Nevada

Rose of Nevada

British writer-director Mark Jenkin’s visually inventive maritime mystery ‘Rose of Nevada’ hits a few choppy waters but ultimately proves to be a haunting meditation on grief, guilt and collective trauma.

Frankenstein

Frankenstein

Guillermo del Toro’s lifelong obsession with Frankenstein and his Creature comes to thrilling, bombastic life in this new take on Mary Shelley’s novel.

Below the Clouds

Below the Clouds

Digging deep into Naples’ past, Italy’s premier documentarian Gianfranco Rosi (‘Sacro GRA’; ‘Notturno’) struggles to turn the city into a metaphor for time, history, and the human condition in ‘Below the Clouds’.

Broken English

Broken English

Marianne Faithfull died while making the arty swansong documentary ‘Broken English’, which is hampered by too much stylistic trickery but still delivers a rich mixtape of music, memories and boho-rock royalty.

No Other Choice

No Other Choice

A farcical crimefest with a dark side, Park Chan-wook’s ‘No Other Choice’ amplifies the inhumanity of modern industry and the utter ruthlessness of salaried work in an engaging film full of unexpected twists.

My Father and Qaddafi

My Father and Qaddafi

Libyan-American director Jihan K mourns both her lost father and her lost fatherland in her moving, lyrical, densely layered murder-mystery docu-memoir ‘My Father and Qadaffi’.

Coyotes

Coyotes

Said Zagha’s pulsating neo-noir probes at the dark consequences of being pushed to breaking point in Coyotes, a genre-inflected Palestinian short.

Milk Teeth

Milk Teeth

Mihai Mincan’s compellingly enigmatic sophomore solo effort ‘Milk Teeth’ deals with the end of the Ceausescu regime in Romania in a roundabout way.

Hijra

Hijra

Three women’s journey to Mecca becomes a stunning allegory on life for a 12-year-old girl in Saudi director Shahad Ameen’s (‘Scales’) bewitching road movie, ‘Hijra’.

Bugonia

Bugonia

Emma Stone reunites with ‘The Favourite’ and ‘Poor Things’ director Yorgos Lanthimos for ‘Bugonia’, a slight but enjoyably bizarre remake of a cult Korean sci-fi kidnap comedy.

La Grazia

La Grazia

Toni Servillo shines in a memorable, tragi-comic performance as the president of Italy in Paolo Sorrentino’s crowd-pleasing Venice opener ‘La Grazia’, an often funny, sometimes moving tale of the Numero Uno’s loneliness, inner doubts and obsessions and his inability to make up his mind on difficult legislation like euthanasia.

Mother

Mother

Noomi Rapace and director Teona Strugar Mitevska give young Mother Teresa a lightly feminist “punk” remix, but sadly their non-committal bio-drama ‘Mother’ is not ‘The Girl with the Jesus Tattoo’.