‘Bride kidnapping’ continues to exist in the Hmong’s cultural tradition as this beautifully shot, eye-opening Vietnamese documentary shows us with raw authenticity and empathy the life of a 12-year-old Hmong girl pushed towards the fate of a prospective marriage.
Tonally uneven and tries too hard to be captivating, Panah Panahi’s tragicomic debut feature is a mixed bag of a road movie, despite the picturesque cinematography and some genuine moments of human empathy.
Exquisitely hand-painted frame by frame, this French-language arthouse animation is bleak yet hopeful, about two young siblings who are forced to leave their home in order to flee from war and persecution in Eastern Europe.
This Chadian film, about the taboos of teenage pregnancy and abortion in a restrictive patriarchal society, is an important story to be told, even though it feels too straightforwardly familiar a tale to resonate deeply.
A decent Spanish comedy that pokes fun at the film industry, acting and the creative process, benefiting from the wonderful charisma of its trio of actors.
A young Swedish woman travels to Los Angeles in hopes of becoming a porn star in this sexually explicit if eye-opening dramatisation of professionalism, as coded by pleasure, pain, power and submission.
It’s not easy to do a documentary about the life and work of arguably the world’s most extraordinary film composer, but Cinema Paradiso director Giuseppe Tornatore just about makes it work as it captures the sheer breadth and range of the maestro’s legacy.
A below-par effort by one of Israel’s established directors whose somewhat controversial film about a family trapped by a military lockdown of an Arab town in Israel has a great premise but suffers from an uninteresting execution.
Movies about children with hidden powers are not a new thing, but in this Norwegian psychological drama with a terrific sound design, writer-director Vogt has created an unsettling portrait of childhood as the thin line between good and evil is explored.
Kuosmanen’s wintry sophomore feature will satisfy patient viewers looking for a rewarding road trip (on tracks) as a disheartened Finnish woman acquaints with a feisty Russian man whilst travelling on a train from Moscow to Murmansk.
Eternality Tan 