Toxic
Lithuanian teens pin hope on an exploitative modelling school as a way out of their dead-end town in Saule Bliuvaite’s acerbic, striking coming-of-ager.
Locarno
New Dawn Fades
A sensitive mind struggles with esoteric encounters in the Istanbul gloom in Gurcan Keltek’s spectacularly atmospheric horror.
Transamazonia
Acts of faith, plunder and resistance deep in the Amazon are the territory of a majestic and hallucinatory but heavy-handed anti-colonial thriller from Pia Marais.
Holy Electricity
Tato Kotetishvili’s Georgian debut is a scrappily episodic and freewheeling, dry-humoured celebration of down-and-out margins brimming with eccentric personality.
Drowning Dry
A family derailed by a swimming accident struggles to make sense of the trauma in Laurynas Bareisa’s haunting and profoundly disorienting drama.
The Sparrow in the Chimney
Ramon Zürcher’s utterly distinctive talent for twisting the domestic into the uncanny gains intensity in a cutting psychological horror as thrilling as it is elliptical and dark.
Bogancloch
Ben Rivers revisits hermit Jake Williams in Scottish woodland for a sparse, mysterious and music-oriented doc on life off the grid in gathering crisis.
Death Will Come
Christoph Hochhäusler’s Brussels-set neo-noir about a female assassin sets up wild ideas about futuristic crime which a convoluted plot never quite delivers.
Lousy Carter
American indie darling Bob Byington will please his fans with this minor amusing look at an underachieving English lit professor whose greatest disappointment is himself.
Stepne
Maryna Vroda’s richly lensed feature debut is a melancholic look at a dying part of north-eastern Ukraine that’s seemingly untouched by the present war, and while the narrative holds interest thanks especially to the protagonist, it’s the documentary-like scenes that are the film’s heart.
The Vanishing Soldier
Potent pacing and a charismatic lead propel this absorbing Israeli film in which a young soldier deserts his post during a Gaza incursion and escapes to Tel Aviv where he keeps running.
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
If the end of the world really is approaching, Jude may be our most trenchant Cassandra.
You Will Not Have My Hate
Director Kilian Riedhof’s deluxe weepie ‘You Will Not Have My Hate’ is based on a best-selling memoir about a Parisian family dealing with the aftermath of terrorist violence.
Locarno 2022: The Verdict
The 75th edition of the Locarno Film Festival reinforced what’s been apparent for some time: programming a major festival largely composed of world premieres that falls between Cannes and Venice is no easy task. Embracing its cinephilic reputation with more conviction than ever, Locarno continues to search for challenging works in their two main prize-giving...
Read more
Locarno 2022: The Awards
Brazilian director Julia Murat’s bold, brave and important feature ‘Rule 34’ (‘Regra 34’) walked off with the Pardo d’oro for best film at Locarno in a surprise win.
Serviam – I Will Serve
A twisted sister at an all-girl Catholic school pushes her fanatical faith to dangerous extremes in Ruth Mader’s gripping psycho-horror thriller ‘Serviam – I Will Serve’.
Our Lady of the Chinese Shop
Complex and a bit obscure, Ery Claver’s directing debut is a clever contemplation of religion, power, and politics in Angola.
Loving Highsmith
Swiss director Eva Vitija gets up close and personal with much-filmed thriller author and queer icon Patricia Highsmith in her well-crafted documentary ‘Loving Highsmith’.
Matter Out of Place
Award-winning documentary director Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s latest exquisitely composed opus looks at the global garbage crisis, from Maldive palm groves strewn with plastic to festering landfills, encompassing community rubbish collections and recycling plants in a cinema-essay style whose noninterventionist approach caters to audiences already committed to the cause.
Stella in Love
A troubled teenage girl finds love and liberation in the nightclubs of 1980s Paris in director Sylvie Verheyde’s slight but charming autobiographical retro-drama ‘Stella in Love’.
I Have Electric Dreams
There’s much to admire in Valentina Maurel’s dramatic depiction of a dysfunctional father and daughter relationship, chiefly its terrific performances
Little Ones
Debuting director Julie Lerat-Gersant imbues tremendous sympathy for her 16-year-old pregnant protagonist in this unpretentious, heartfelt drama whose overall predictability doesn’t detract from its modest strengths.
A Perfect Day for Caribou
Jeff Rutherford’s debut feature film is enlivened by a screenplay packed with truths about the damage parents and partners can cause.
Medusa Deluxe
Debut director Thomas Hardiman’s off-beat single-shot murder mystery ‘Medusa Deluxe’ is a dazzling catwalk show of spiky comedy, fluid camerawork and fabulous hair.
Tommy Guns
Backed by Vasco Viana’s superb cinematography, Carlos Conceição’s film about a squadron of soldiers in pre-independence Angola rises above its narrative gaps.
Stone Turtle
An intriguing though not always well-integrated attempt to engage with different forms of storytelling, including traditional Malaysian folklore, at the service of a feminist revenge tale.
My Neighbor Adolf
A misfire of perplexing obliviousness, in which we’re meant to believe that Udo Kier’s character once bore a striking resemblance to Hitler. The best that can be said about this limp comedy is that it could have been far more offensive.
Declaration
Class inequality, corruption and power dynamics between the sexes is the background to this working-class Malayalam drama anchored by the nuanced female lead, played by Divya Prabha, and mesmeric images in a latex glove factory.
Bullet Train
Brad Pitt plays a laconic hit man in director David Leitch’s ‘Bullet Train’, a laborious action comedy about mayhem and murder on an Oriental express.
A Thousand Fires
Family life in rural Myanmar is intimately explored in this earnest if somewhat obtuse chronicle.
Petite Solange
A keenly observed if somewhat underwhelming chronicle of divorce, and how it upends the life of a teenage girl.
Juju Stories
While still clearly finding their voice, three young Nigerian directors serve up entertaining vignettes of African life derived from popular made-in-Africa superstitions.
Hinterland
This superior pulp-noir thriller has a reality-bending look that draws heavily on vintage German Expressionist art.
A New Old Play
Director Qiu Jiongjiong uses a traditional theater troupe to spin out three long hours of dreamy reflections on Chinese history in the 20th century.