This haunting debut feature about a group of schoolgirls shielded from the modern world is best described as ‘Dogtooth’ meets ‘Petite Maman’, marked by an unsettling sound design and an acute sense of false normalcy.
Women bare their bodies and souls in this excellent intimate, inward-looking Estonian documentary set in a private smoke sauna.
A widow’s anxiety and frustration over a feisty inheritance tussle reflects entrenched patriarchal thinking in both domestic and legal arenas in this fine debut feature, which is also the first film from Jordan to compete at Cannes.
Technically exceptional but overlong and somewhat meandering, this Vietnamese Cannes Camera d’Or-winning work takes a leaf out of Weerasethakul’s slow cinema playbook, as a man must process and reflect on loss after an unexpected death in the family.
A confident debut feature as this poignant drama about two Korean childhood sweethearts who meet again as adults in New York will likely work the tearducts.
It’s hard to find a debut feature this dreamy and evocative, as Dash lends historical voice to her people—the generations of Gullahs who lived on the South Carolina Sea Islands as they endured slavery and faced a modernising 20th century.
A sensitively-drawn debut feature about a trans-child who must navigate burgeoning notions of gender identity amid confusing signals sent by her family, shot in a naturalistic style befitting the very nature of self-discovery.
A mother hopes to make amends with her daughter by cooking a special chicken dish in this striking French animation full of colours and vitality, set against the backdrop of a strike that has caused their town to come to a standstill.
The incredible mountainous vistas envelope this deeply resonating tale of two boys-turned-men with baggage from the past and uncertain futures as they navigate family, friendship and the natural landscape that continually gives them the inspiration to live.
Seemingly thin on story at first but ultimately rewarding like a cleansing wave of life’s little moments of affection and humanity, this Irish Oscar-nominated directorial debut centres on a young girl’s tenderly introspective view of an adult world of joy, sorrow and the unsaid.
Eternality Tan 