Deborah Young: a Memorable Five from 2025

SILENT FRIEND (Ildikó Enyedi)
As magically engrossing as the firm embrace of ancient tree roots, Silent Friend accomplishes the remarkable feat of turning a meditation on time, nature, neuroscience and interspecies connections into a stirring adventure of ideas. Written and directed by Hungarian master Ildikó Enyedi, this is a totally original, time-spanning story set in three historical moments that are connected by the towering presence of a Ginkgo biloba tree clocking the centuries. Hong Kong star Tony Leung Chiu-wai arrives in a quiet German university as a visiting professor — just in time for COVID-19 lockdown — and makes the telephonic acquaintance of tree expert Léa Seydoux. A film for all ages and tastes from sci-fi to gardening, it should have no trouble crashing the art house barrier.

HIJRA (Shahad Ameen)
Three women’s journey to Mecca becomes a stunning allegory on life in Saudi director Shahad Ameen’s bewitching road movie Hijra. Incorporating something of the mythic dimension of Ameen’s first feature Scales, this complex, layered film offers the viewer different doors of entry. On a hot, dusty bus ride to visit the holy site of Mecca, an elderly woman and her two teenage granddaughters go through a severe trial, when the rebellious older sister suddenly vanishes at a rest stop. Using faces and landscapes, coupled with naturalistic performances from a perfectly chosen small cast, Ameen offers a penetrating, multifaceted portrait of women caught up in Arab culture without resorting to clichés, and reaching high into the sky with an unforced spiritual dimension.

IT WOULD BE NIGHT IN CARACAS (Mariana Rondon, Marité Ugas)
Set against the riots and civil unrest of 2017, It Would Be Night in Caracas is a wrenching, atmospheric escape thriller brought to the screen by Mariana Rondon and Marité Ugas. Dark and grim, this fast-paced tale shows how Venezuela’s political crisis has transformed the country into a violent outlaw state and couldn’t be more topical. The story is told through the terrified eyes of Adelaida (Natalia Reyes), who comes home from burying her mother to find her apartment occupied by a pro-regime female militia, and a dead body in the neighbor’s apartment where she takes refuge. With all exits out of the country shutting down, she makes a daring bid for freedom. A must-see for background on the current political upheaval.

IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT (Jafar Panahi)
Film by film, Jafar Panahi has become increasingly direct and outspoken about the blatant trampling on human rights in Iran. But never has this masterful filmmaker, who has himself spent time in Evin prison, been more explicit in denouncing the torture of political prisoners than in It Was Just an Accident. The film’s mixture of humor and tenderness with anger and drama creates a fable-like dissonance and distance from the viewer, even while it raises the stakes in attacking the Iranian regime and the violence it perpetrates on its citizens. The film’s uniqueness lies in its choice to focus on the lasting psychological damage done to the victims of torture and their painfully impotent fantasies of revenge on their captors — if only they could find them. It won the Palme d’Or at Cannes.

ORWELL: 2 + 2 = 5  (Raoul Peck)
“Ignorance is Strength,” proclaims the omniscent Big Brother in 1984. “War is Peace.” In Raoul Peck’s dark and timely documentary Orwell: 2+2=5, the director of  I Am Not Your Negro limpidly shows how these bombastic oxymorons exemplify the shift towards authoritarianism taking place in democratic societies today. The film’s explicit critique of Donald Trump, whose image appears frequently, hammers home America’s dive into fascism. A militant film structured around the life of English visionary George Orwell, author of prescient political fantasies like Animal Farm (an allegory of Stalinism in Russia) and 1984, it is designed to arouse political outrage and involvement in the audience – and for the most part it succeeds spectacularly. Peck pulls no punches.