A beautifully animated French drama that focuses on the nuts and bolts of mountain scaling as a Japanese photojournalist hopes to find historical and existential clarity about the exploits of several mountain climbers.
Brazilian director Karim Ainouz looks back at his family’s history as he journeys to his late father’s Algeria in search of his roots in this poetic, experimental documentary that constantly surprises with its film form and language.
Diop’s well-intentioned documentary centering on people living in the Parisian suburbs is surprisingly monotonous, unstimulating, and goes on for far too long.
A charming delight as this Oscar-nominated live-action/stop-motion animation hybrid centers on the exploits and feelings of a talking mollusc shell who lives with his granny, shot as a self-aware ‘documentary’.
Bellocchio’s most personal work, this deeply engaging documentary digs into his family’s past, centering on the death of his twin brother by suicide more than 50 years ago.
Difficult to enjoy and too reliant on its theatrical artifice for three overlong hours, this esoteric and inscrutable drama tackles China’s 20th-century history through the memories of a dead theatre troupe member ready to enter the afterlife.
The Venezuelan director’s sophomore fiction feature is so unrushed and assured that one immediately feels at ease immersing in a solid narrative about mistaken identity and the plight—and fate—of migrant workers in Mexico.
An artistic and personal attempt to produce a film during the Covid pandemic, this meta-cine piece is calm and poetic, told via a playful reverse-chrono structure.
Frammartino’s first feature in more than a decade, this dialogue-less wonder of a film is an immersive journey into one of the world’s deepest caves where Man must treat scientific discovery and human mortality with the same curious brushstroke.
An animated shamisen rock ballad if there ever was one that features stunning visuals but a rather excessive and overlong midsection of performative songs that aren’t exactly musically memorable.
Eternality Tan 