Diego Semerene

Freudians will have a field day with Markus Schleinzer’s 17th-century-set folk tale.

Leyla Bouzid’s ability to capture the complexities and contradictions of familial affection is what makes In a Whisper so impressive.

The film is a philosophical account of the shaky ground that human existence stands on.

The film truthfully hints at the sharp whirs behind the smooth façade of everyday life.

The Ice Tower is, ultimately, an aesthetic and nostalgic exercise.

Radu Jude’s cinema isn’t exactly absurdist, though it exposes the absurdities of a present reeling from the unresolved injustices of yore.

The film blooms in moments where, instead of literally addressing Coco's gender trouble, we’re simply allowed to inhabit it.

Despite its initially familiar trajectory, Another End disarmingly and purposefully sweeps us away on a wave of apathy not unlike that which plagues its main character, challenging our sense of who we fundamentally are as humans.

The film finds its profundity in moments where not much is said and nothing is intellectualized, when language is stripped to its bare bones.

Above all, the film captures how easy it is to deposit too much hope on the few who represent dissent, or freedom, when one is trapped.

Maite Alberdi’s film slowly reveals the personal loss of the ability to remember as inextricably linked to the loss of national memory.

Our Body offers, in its unwavering commitment to staring at the fragility of life in the eye, a solace devoid of romanticism or spiritual self-delusion.

The film’s most significant accomplishment is the mood it crafts with its cool black-and-white images, fast-paced editing, unorthodox camera angles, handheld camera, and overall jazzy atmosphere.

Because so much of Hayakawa’s film is given over to depictions of the procedures, formalities, and impersonal administration that define Plan 75, even the tiniest spark of feeling comes as a relief.

The film’s most authentic moments are those that leave its main character breathless, cutting her plans for making up for lost time short.

Joyland is full of extraordinary situations that prevent it from being defined by its topicality or tantamount to a badge of honor.

Femme fascinatingly taps into the radical possibilities of the sartorial as narrative device, exploring the tabooed nuances of queer subjectivity and muddying the lines between gay and trans in the way that lived experience tends to do.

Lack of clarity, it turns out, is what makes Disco Boy so enjoyable, and imbues it with gravitas.

The film is best experienced by simply wallowing in the lushness of its fabrics, sartorial and symbolic alike, refusing the temptation to unspool its poetic parallels.

The film reminds us that any coming of age is a risky business where finitude and mourning are the only guarantees.

Léonor Serraille’s Mother and Son is a lovely film about feminine strength that also refuses to glorify motherhood.

Throughout Andrea Arnold’s film, a kind of affective connection is formed between animal and the cinematic apparatus.

In Great Freedom, the question of love is refreshingly never too far from bodily intimacy, irrespective of what kind of love that is.

The film’s initial aimlessness is pleasurable for the way that it allows the viewer to stare at life being processed on the stunned, confused, and ecstatic face of a teenager.

Pietro Marcello, Francesco Munzi, and Alice Rohrwacher’s documentary rather faithfully captures the spirit of our times.

Unclenching the Fists is a tale of how the desolation of a nation inhabits and engraves a woman’s body.

Though uneven, the film is clever about avoiding age-old conundrums regarding the disavowal of the language of horror.

At its most accomplished, the film unfolds with a voluptuous slowness and a sense that narrative endpoints are irrelevant.