About Dry Grasses
Dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Given the controversial subject matter, there’s something remarkably placid about the way About Dry Grasses proceeds. Amidst the snowy white…
Last Film Show
Dir. Pan Nalin
Like many coming-of-age films about films, it’s easy to assume that Last Film Show would be a derivative of all-time…
Godland
Dir. Hlynur Palmason
On the one hand, Godland is a film about nature’s unforgiving beauty. Like the photographs the priest Lucas (Elliott Crosset…
R.M.N.
Set in a small town in Romania, R.M.N. is a challenging slow-burn that explores what happens to an insular community…
Captain Miller
Dir. Arun Matheswaran
Set in the British colonial era, Captain Miller is more unapologetically violent than its counterparts, but it’s not mindlessly so.…
The Ugly Stepsister
Dir. Emilie Blichfeldt & Emilie Kristine Blichfeldt
There are plenty of versions of the Cinderella story, but none as brutal and nauseating as The Ugly Stepsister. For…
Return to Seoul
Dir. Davy Chou
In both documentaries and films, adoptees meeting their biological parents for the first time is an event often painted in…
Four Daughters
Dir. Kaouther Ben Hania
Normally, a film like this would be a straightforward documentary with archival footage and key interviews with experts in the…
Our Father, the Devil
Dir. Ellie Foumbi
There are horrors in the world that people have faced, and if they survive, they live with the trauma for…
Sick of Myself
Dir. Kristoffer Borgli
One woman’s main character syndrome reaches shocking lows in this vicious Norwegian satire of social-media-era narcissists. Signe (Kristine Kujath Thorp)…
Utama
Dir. Alejandro Loayza Grisi
Before anything else, Utama will knock you off your feet with its breathtaking beauty. Set in the Bolivian highlands, it…
The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic
Dir. Teemu Nikki
You’ll probably never find a film like The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic. The camera is…
Luzzu
Dir. Alex Camilleri
In Luzzu, tradition and modernity — plus principles and necessity — come crashing up against each other like waves in…
Rental Family
Dir. Hikari
Since the 1990s, Japan has offered the service of pretending to be one’s family, friend, or lover. Rental Family isn’t…
Yuni
Dir. Kamila Andini
Education is a human right, but for many girls around the world, this isn’t necessarily guaranteed– especially if they want…
Cairo Conspiracy
Dir. Tarik Saleh
When he’s accepted into the prestigious Islamic university Al-Azhar, fisherman’s son Adam (Tawfeek Barhom) gets an eye-opening education — but…
The Falls
Dir. Chung Mong-hong
All the synopses going around the internet won’t fail to let you know that The Falls takes place at the…
The American
Dir. James Napier & James Napier Robertson
Ballet has always captivated with its grace and poise, so of course it captivated cinema as well, with classics such…
The Peasants
Dir. DK Welchman & Hugh Welchman
After Loving Vincent, DK and Hugh Welchman’s iconic oil paint animation initially seems like old hat, but this time the…