TORONTO 2024: Seven Days (2024)
★★★★☆
Seven Days, directed by Ali Samadi Ahai and written by Mohammed Rasoulof is a poignant film that explores the human tensions between political resistance and personal sacrifice.
Germany
Venice 2024: The Witness (2024) (Shahed)
★★★★☆
The Witness, directed by Nader Saeivar and co-written with Jafar Panahi, uses women and dance to tell the story of contemporary Iran.
VENICE 2024: Quiet Life (2024)
★★★☆☆
Quiet Life, directed by Alexander Avranas, shows how the stress of being a Russian refugee in Sweden can result in resignation syndrome (a ‘shutting down’).
About Dry Grasses (2023) (Kuru Otlar Üstüne)
★★★★★
About Dry Grasses by Nuri Bilge Ceylan is another masterpiece from the Turkish auteur.
A House in Jerusalem (2023)
★★★☆☆
Palestinian filmmakers Muyad and Rami Alayan prick and prod Israel’s conscience about dispossession in A House in Jerusalem.
Tiger Stripes (2023)
★★★★☆
Tiger Stripes is a compelling coming-of-age body horror, the first feature by Amanda Nell Eu.
Elaha (2024)
★★★★☆
Elaha, directed by Milena Aboyan, is a powerful contemporary story about the conflict between tradition and modernity in the life of a young girl from an immigrant family in Germany.
Omen (2023) (Augure)
★★★☆☆
Omen is multidisciplinary artist Baloji’s magical realist award-winning first feature.
Four Daughters (2023) (Les Filles d’Olfa)
★★★★★
Four Daughters is a powerful and emotionally compelling mixture of documentary and drama directed by Kaouther Ben Hania that examines the roots of fundamentalism and how women pass on self-imposed repression through the generations.
Berlinale 2024: Reas (2024)
★★★★☆
Reas is an extraordinary documentary and musical by Lola Arias set in a women’s prison in Argentina, unlike anything you have seen before.
Perfect Days (2023)
★★★★☆
Perfect Days is acclaimed director Wim Wenders’ Tokyo-set film for which Koji Yakusho won a well-deserved Best Actor award.
The Settlers (2023) (Los Colonos)
★★★☆☆
The Settlers is an angry, violent Western-type version of the brutal colonial birth of Chile by first-time filmmaker Felipe Gálvez.
Padre Pio (2022)
★★★★☆
Abel Ferrara’s Padre Pio links religious fervour, the growth of fascism and socialism, and the Ukraine invasion, and is based on true events culminating on 14 October 1920.
Fallen Leaves (2023) (Kuolleet lehdet)
★★★★☆
Fallen Leaves is Aki Kaurismäki’s drily touching film of a kind of love story amid the grinding reality of life.