A young woman’s unwavering stand against the shameful Iranian legal system is captured with both intimacy and exasperation in this insightful documentary about the case of Reyhaneh Jabbari, who was hanged for acting in self-defence against a rapist in 2014.
This beautifully animated adaptation of several Murakami’s texts is talky and philosophical as it flits between surrealism and a sense of groundedness, urging us to find or create meaning in life even when there might be none.
A housewife prostitutes herself to earn more money to enjoy life’s luxuries in Godard’s somewhat messy ‘anything goes’ takedown on consumerism, as he scathingly—and self-reflexively—goes off tangent in matters of language, the Paris city, love and more.
A Korean adopted by a French couple when she was a baby returns to Korea for the first time as a French woman in Davy Chou’s intimate if chastening third feature, backed by an excellent performance from Park Ji-min in her acting debut.
Marker’s legendary work, comprised of a montage of still photographs with narration, is not just one of cinema’s most famous shorts, but a thought-provoking look at the impossibility of escaping the claws of time.
Sandrine Bonnaire announces herself as one of French cinema’s most compelling actresses in what could be one of Pialat’s most beloved works, which charts the sexual awakening of a teenage girl living with her dysfunctional family.
An endlessly looping piece of cheerful island music envelopes and provides a counterpoint to Duras’ melancholic conversational piece between two women as they reflect on a marriage in tatters.
One of Marker’s defining works about time and memory, this is an experimental documentary of the highest order, capturing the wonder and bizarreness of human cultures and existence amid technological change.
In Schanelec’s under-appreciated slow cinema oeuvre, this could be one of her ‘noisiest’ and most perceptive works as we become privy to the intimate conversations of several groups of strangers who are waiting to depart at the busy Paris-Orly airport.
A somewhat oblique and unconventional courtroom drama about the intersections of legality, spectres of neocolonialism and the plight of immigrant mothers which will require some patience, but Diop shows that she is not afraid to take narrative and stylistic risks.
Eternality Tan 