Horizons

Sometime in the nineties, somewhere in a Turkish coastal resort, Calum (Paul Mescal), a young, divorced father, is spending the vacation with his daughter Sophie (Francesca Corio), a girl almost in her teens. This debut by Charlotte Wells, one of the most agreeable surprises at this year’s Cannes festival, captures fragments of childhood memories and doesn’t require flamboyant gestures to portray unutterably intense life impressions.

A chilling character study. When the likable young Julius invites his co-workers to go sailing with him on his family yacht, nothing feels out of the ordinary. But even before the group gets on board, serious cracks appear in the image of the main protagonist. Who is this Julius, and what drives his actions?

A way of seeing which endows its objects with nobility and connects the far and near, the open and the closed. Angeliki Papoulia, a wealthy yet perpetually dissatisfied woman, is looking for an apartment in Vienna at a time when the smoking ban in public places impacts the city’s coffeehouse culture. After its premiere at the Berlinale the film won Best Director at the BAFICI festival in Buenos Aires.

The combative 14-year-old Addi takes a bullied classmate under his wing and introduces him to his gang of friends. Can a bully become a protector and vice versa? A disturbing yet highly sensitive drama about the reverse side of adolescence, the beauties and cruelties of childhood, and the dark twists and turns of male friendship.

Halim and Mina own a small family tailor shop that specializes in sewing ceremonial caftans. Since traditional hand-crafted work is time-consuming, Halim decides to hire an assistant, Youssef. The presence of the attractive young man arouses long-suppressed feelings in Halim, something that does not go unnoticed by his wife Mina… A deeply moving melodrama about the many forms of love, The Blue Caftan excels thanks to a sophisticated script and outstanding performances from the three leads.

Award-winning director Lorenzo Vigas returns with another subtle study of paternal authority and the lost vulnerable souls who intuitively gravitate towards it. In this dramatic tale of an orphaned boy, he uncovers the cruel ecosystem of cheap day labor on the Mexican periphery while managing to capture subtle emotional processes in the mesmerizing stony countenance of the young non-actor Hatzín Navarrete.

Soldier Lilia returns home from the war after several months in captivity in the Donbass, where she was being held by separatists. Her brutal treatment brings on trauma which torments her in harrowing dreams. As an expert in aerial reconnaissance, she saw action on the front line from a drone’s perspective. Yet, if you just want to carry on living your life, a bird’s-eye view isn’t necessarily the best option.

Leningrad, 1938. The Stalinist machine is running at full throttle, seeking out enemies of the state and executing the innocent. One of the executioners is the well-respected Captain Volkonogov, but he soon realizes the heinous nature of the system of which he has become a part. On a sudden impulse, he decides to seek out the relatives of his victims and to ask for forgiveness, even though he risks soon being silenced.

Thirteen-year-old Rémi and Léo are inseparable. Their intense friendship also involves an unusual physical closeness, which becomes the target of sneering remarks from their adolescent classmates and irrevocably disrupts their relationship. This intimately tender and oppressively painful film about growing up was considered by many to be the emotional pinnacle of this year’s festival in Cannes, where it earned the Grand Prix (ex aequo).

It is the year 1877 and Elisabeth of Bavaria is celebrating her fortieth birthday. In the same way her tight-fitting corset confines her body, the restrictive way of life at the Viennese court is stifling her personality. The myth of Empress Sissi returns, this time played by Vicky Krieps, who is outstanding in this quick-witted costume drama about a restless woman longing for freedom and emancipation.

Renowned visual artist Ali Cherri makes his debut in feature film with the enigmatic story of Maher, a Sudanese labourer who works in a brickyard on the banks of the Nile and, every evening, he wanders off into the desert to continue constructing a mysterious monster made of mud. This mesmerising allegory with its uncompromising political subtext entranced audiences at this year’s festival in Cannes.

A strange death in the mountains, a mysterious widow, and a detective slowly discovering unwanted emotions. Can one silence the past for the sake of love? This stylish romance full of mysterious plot twists resists labeling as the South Korean master of the mystery thriller comes up with one great idea after another. A well-deserved best director winner at Cannes.

Bruno hails from a remote Alpine village; Pietro is a son of the city. Despite their different backgrounds, the two men are bound by a strong friendship. Whether on their own or together, they are both searching for the answers to life in the high mountains. An intimate story set amidst the spectacular panoramas of the Alps and Nepal, The Eight Mountains took home the Jury Prize in the main competition at this year’s festival in Cannes.

Eo is a gray donkey who is freed from the circus by a legislative act. Thus begins his surreal journey through the world, as the audience observes various forms of human behavior through his eyes. A distinctive variation on Bresson’s allegorical Au hasard Balthazar and a formally liberated parable that one reviewer called the wackiest film in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Zaninka is mourning her dead son, but her husband thinks only of himself. Mukobwa doesn’t want to donate an organ to save his father because he has discovered his dark past. Little Kadogo is learning to hate after experiencing his father’s brutal form of child-rearing. A lyrical film about the role of fathers in a country still haunted by the shadows of a national tragedy.

Katia and Maurice. A geochemist and a geologist. A charming volcanologist couple who spent their lives on the peaks of active volcanoes, erupting lava and emotions notwithstanding. How small is man when compared to the power of nature? And who do you live for when you could die at any moment? This touching documentary romance became an unexpected audience hit during the festival season this spring.

Ten-year-old loner Viky lives with her parents in a small Alpine village. She differs from the other children, who mock her for her wild and bushy hair, not just by her skin color but especially because of her supernatural abilities. When her father’s sister Julia appears in the village after an absence of ten years, Viky uses her powers to slowly unravel dark family secrets... Léa Mysius has given this visually and aurally fascinating genre spectacle an extra existential dimension while capturing on film the small-town mindset.

A flatulence-plagued narrator guides us through the closed space of a manor house where an arts patron and director of the Sonic Catering Institute uses various forms of manipulation in order to get a trio of performance artists to provide ever better results. This intimate satire shows that, in the world of “sonic culinary art,” everything is a dirty struggle for power.

Edina would do anything to fulfil her dream of becoming a bodybuilding world champion. The training and performance-enhancing drugs don’t come cheap, however, so she is forced to accept work as an escort at a specialised agency. Everyone sees Edina merely as a walking mass of muscle and, up until a certain point, that’s how she views herself as well. Until love enters her life...

In the late 19th century Lucas, a Danish missionary brimming with ambition and ideals, sets off on a journey to a remote part of Iceland to help finish the construction of a church and to photograph the local inhabitants. What appears to be a predictable pilgrimage, however, gradually becomes an unexpectedly intense encounter with the landscape and the forces of nature. For many the absolute pinnacle of this year’s festival in Cannes, the stunningly composed drama with its truly enchanting images was created by consummate talent of contemporary film, Hlynur Pálmason (A White, White Day).

Nancy nervously paces back and forth by the hotel-room window until a good-looking young man knocks at the door. A widow and former teacher who has never had an orgasm, Nancy has decided to educate herself when it comes to sex. But first she will have to overcome her own uncertainties. Emma Thompson shines in this conversational film that is something like an updated version of Pretty Woman.

Ali earns a living illegally selling gasoline on the street. He doesn’t have any contact with his family, but when he receives news that his father has died, he is forced to become responsible for his two younger sisters. The family home is burdened by debt and the police have intensified their search for fuel smugglers… Harka rightfully earned the Best Performance award in the Un Certain Regard competition at Cannes.

In 1962, a group of young speleologists from northern Italy set out for the country’s south to explore the seemingly bottomless maw of an unexplored abyss, which turns out to be one of the deepest ever discovered. Visually compelling imagery brings to life the vertiginous and lofty beauty of nature as well as man’s determination and fragility.

In his traditionally organized family, Haider is the lowest-ranked member. His wife Mumtaz goes to work while he looks after the household. His family pressures him to find a job, and eventually he ends up working with a dance troupe led by the charismatic trans artist Biba. A devastating romance soon evolves. An explosive, colorful, humorous, and sad chronicle of an unlikely love affair.

Irka and Tolik live in eastern Ukraine near the Russian border. It is July 2014, and they continue to hope that the thing which is slowly eating away at their house and their souls – and into which their child will soon be born – is not war. This portrait of people who lose the right to make any decisions about their lives has only grown in urgency since its triumphant premiere at Sundance.

The Giant Mountains, 1913. At the start of a skiing competition Bohumil Hanč, the greatest Czech cross-country skier of his day, encounters the talented all-rounder Emmerich Rath, whose German origins have brought him problems his whole life. The bitterly cold, but stunning mountain ridges provide the setting for an ill-fated race, where the battle for first place becomes a battle for survival. A dramatic tale of friendship that knows no national boundaries.

Twelve-year-old Dalva lives with her father, whom she loves to no end. But his love for her is not purely parental, as a police raid reveals one evening. Dalva finds herself in foster care; a trial begins. A tale of childhood innocence and the yearning for love, this drama portrays the young girl as she comes to terms with trauma – first, her separation from her father, then having to accept the bitter truth about the deviant nature of their relationship.

“What’s love for those with no-one to share it?” asks debuting director Max Walker-Silverman in his lyrical romance, one of the true highlights of this year’s Sundance festival. With his intuitive appreciation of the ephemeral beauty of the ordinary day, with tenderness and a subtle sense of humour, he introduces us to the lone traveller Faye (Dale Dickey), who is biding her time at a deserted Colorado campsite, watching birds and stars as she awaits the arrival of Lito (Wes Studi), a figure from her distant past.

Amaia has just given birth to her first daughter. She would prefer not to give up her career as a translator, but it’s not easy to balance it with her family and looking after a young child. When her partner goes away on business for seven weeks, the young woman capitulates and goes to stay with her parents in the countryside. Living together gives her a chance to get to know her mother and father from a new perspective, to understand them, and even to forgive them for a few things…

Lithuanian director Mantas Kvedaravičius returned to the Ukrainian city of Mariupol six years later to record the inhospitable reality of a city under fire from the Russian aggressors. He paid for his return with his life – but his fiancée managed to get the film material out. The edited footage provides a unique account of war and of the altruism of the Ukrainian people.

Over the course of several decades, David Bowie amassed some five million diverse pieces of audiovisual material relating to his artistic career. It took director Brett Morgen (The Kid Stays in the Picture, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck) two years to go through it all. He then spent another year coming up with the conception for his film, and five years creating the sound design for this highly unconventional look at the career of an original musician and fascinating prophet. This unique cinematic experience – one of the key events at the recent festival in Cannes – will ride through you like a wave. Brett Morgen’s testament to David Bowie is as elusive and captivating as the artist himself.

A portrait of one man, a national awakening, and cyclical history. Under the steadfast leadership of professor Vytautas Landsbergis, Lithuania managed to break free from its enforced Soviet brotherhood. The events of 1988–1991 are presented through period footage, interspersed with insightful reflections from the main protagonist. The essential anthropologist Sergei Loznitsa again presents history in an agonizingly topical light.

A pornographic classic, its planned film adaptation, and the casting of male actors aged 16 to 99. The result is not an “adults-only” film but a poignant and sensitive performative documentary. Besides reflecting the life of the Viennese prostitute Josephine Mutzenbacher, readings of excerpts from the book introduce us to the diverse participants in the film’s casting, as well as their attitudes, experiences, and intimate histories.

Ever since she was little Zelma was convinced that, if she behaved like a decent, respectable young girl, she would find love with a big L. However, her first, timid interactions with the opposite sex proved that reality is woefully far removed from her amorous notions. Animator Signe Baumane treats romantic relationships – and the expectations that arise from them – with her typical, lightly ironic detachment, and all this seasoned with musical interjections from a Greek chorus and illuminating details of neurochemical processes in the brain.

The inhabitants of a remote Carpathian village are getting ready for a traditional costumed celebration. Leonid (known as Pamfir) returns home after having spent several months working abroad. When his son Nazar ends up in trouble, Pamfir doesn’t hesitate. He decides to return to his dark past and to take one more risk… Set in the colorful world of the Ukrainian-Romanian border region, Pamfir masterfully combines elements of Greek tragedy, Western, and thriller and brings to the screen one of the most charismatic protagonists of recent years.

Paris in the 1980s. Elisabeth’s husband has left her, and her children, almost grown up, are ready to leave the nest. After years of financial security and a lack of worries, she must find a new job, and so she tries her luck at the radio show “Passengers of the Night,” which she likes to listen to when she cannot sleep. At her new workplace she meets the eighteen-year-old Talulah, who changes her life and that of her entire family.

Anna lives with her daughter in a remote Alpine village. Her love for Marco, who comes to help on the farm, introduces new energy into her life. But the joy of building a relationship and a shared future is soon tempered by Marco’s sudden losses of control… A story of love put to the test, and an evocative look at the hard life of farmers in the Swiss Alps.

The Japanese population is aging inexorably. One possible solution is a government program known as Plan 75, which offers older citizens the chance to die voluntarily in exchange for certain benefits during the autumn of their life. Set in the near future and characterized by gentle humor and melancholy tenderness, the film follows a group of people whose days are far from numbered, as much as society around them would like the opposite to be true.

After her son is sent to the American prison on Guantanamo, Turkish-German Rabiye Kurnaz launches a quixotic struggle against an opaque judicial system, bureaucracy, and international politics, helped by her attorney Bernhard Docke. A sensitive comedy about human indomitability, belief in justice, and undying hope.

2014 – the first year of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. After his capture, the surgeon Serhiy is confronted with violence, torture, and killing. His return home is deeply affected by the trauma he has been through. Valentyn Vasyanovych lets the viewer taste his protagonist’s fear, desperation, and sense of helplessness. During the second, no less painful part of Serhiy’s journey, together they seek the answer to the question of how to live on after having experienced such horrors.

The arranged marriage between the taciturn Ma and the lame and infertile Guiying gives rise to a relationship full of patience and thoughtfulness. Told without a trace of sentimentality, this charming film, set in a landscape of deep yellow corn fields and sand dunes, paints a portrait of modest rural life and reveals the unsustainability of the country idyll in a modernizing China.

Lola Quivoron’s dynamic genre-bending Rodeo takes us into the disturbing world of Bordeaux's suburbs. An underground community of dirt bikers who like to perform stunts on the streets is shaken up with the arrival of Julie, a wild adolescent from the margins of society with a passion for motorcycles. This powerful debut took home an award from this year’s Un Certain Regard section at Cannes.

June and Jennifer, identical twins whose parents are from Barbados, move to Wales soon after their birth. As they grow up, they begin to close themselves off in their own world, to the point that they decide to communicate only with each other. This fascinating story of two unusual, creative beings, profound sisterly love, and destructive dependence is a playful, visual work of cinema that makes use of animation and musical scenes.

When three girls don hijabs and sing their own version of the hit song “Losing my religion”, they become celebrities among the Kurdish community in Vienna. An engaging coming-of-age drama about what it’s like to be a girl growing up in a Muslim family, and also a universal tale of personal development in the face of other people’s views, expectations and conceptions.

A romantic film that briefly introduces us to the carousel of joys and fears of a couple brought together by chance. Or was it fate? Comic book illustrator Anna and theoretical physicist Marco are a pair of congenial Superheroes who, like so many other people, have decided to live together. After all, dealing with shared problems sometimes requires truly superhuman strength.

Rapper Cole returns, exhausted, from a successful tour. The people around him, especially his personal assistant Ilana, continue to work tirelessly on his career, but Cole is detached from it all. He slowly succumbs to a downward spiral of depression, drugs, prostitutes, and alcohol… The lead role in the latest film by established American independent filmmaker Tim Sutton is played by rapper Colson Baker, aka Machine Gun Kelly.

An experimental therapy is supposed to help three women with their sexual addiction. Can abstinence resolve the traumas hidden behind the façade of wild fantasies? Taking the viewer on a journey through the treacherous terrain of female sexuality, That Kind of Summer is an exciting and playful exploration of the possibilities for presenting this subject on the screen without being shockingly explicit.

Professor of narratology Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) arrives in Istanbul for a conference, but when a Djinn (Idris Elba) appears in her hotel room she begins to question her identity as a rational academic. After the adrenaline-laden, post-apocalyptic ride of Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), George Miller came to Cannes with this eccentric fantasy and timeless tale of love and yearning.

Five years after The Square Ruben Östlund took away his second Palme d’Or from Cannes, along with a reputation as the filmmaker behind the wittiest film of this year’s competition. The tale of the young couple Carl and Yaya begins in the world of modelling while, for the second act, we move to a luxury cruise ship. Will the fierce storm which tosses the waves and the contents of their bloated stomachs liberate the super-rich passengers from the futility of their lives? Or will Östlund’s characters again behave like animals even in this extreme situation?

Rose was a child when her mother died, and the family had an explanation ready for her: suicide. Except the fragments of memory that come to the young woman as she is growing up in the care of her grandmother and despotic uncle in a remote part of Calabria suggest something else. In her desire to understand the past and the family dynamic, Rosa uncovers the laws of the mafia world, in which she had only been a passive element until now.

Debut director Erige Sehiri closely follows the lives of her protagonists, young Tunisian women helping out during the fig harvest. Each has her own story, her own joys and worries, and her own ambitions to achieve something in life despite the limitations placed on them by a patriarchal society. Set over the course of one day, this captivating film about agreeably willful youth enjoyed remarkable success at the festival in Cannes.

An ongoing drought forces an elderly Quechuan Indian couple to face a complicated dilemma: do they stay in an inhospitable landscape or leave for the city? In his Sundance-winning debut, director Alejandro Loayza Grisi shows himself to be a skilled storyteller, capable of imbuing a spare drama from a forgotten corner of the world with a universal sense of humanity while presenting, without preaching, a statement on the creeping impact of climate change.

The jury at this year’s Cannes Film Festival decided to give the award for best debut film to the extraordinarily convincing look at the life of today’s members of the Oglala Lakota subtribe of the Sioux nation. The directorial duo masterfully guides the viewer through two interconnected storylines set in the inhospitable reality of the Pine Ridge Reservation. An evocative film about the search for one’s place in a world where the descendants of America’s first people still cannot shake the stigma of discrimination.

It took Toaster several months before he turned on his microphone – and he only did this when he met belly-dance instructor DustBunny. By comparison, Jenny, who teaches sign language, didn’t need anything like that in order to understand Ray. Shot on the VRChat virtual platform, this documentary film depicts virtual space as a place where emotions are not a glitch.

The optimistic woodcutter Pepe leads a quiet life in a small town in the north of Finland. But the situation changes when he loses his job. A darkly humorous existential drama about the search for the meaning of life in difficult times, The Woodcutter Story asks an insidious question: Is happiness fleeting or does it depend on one’s inner disposition?

Lidija works for a shady developer, overseeing construction laborers and covering up poor working conditions. But the men decide to protest. Boasting a punk aesthetic, this angry social drama in the style of the Dardenne brothers explores the bending of moral values in a place where capitalism trumps ordinary human life.