Fionnuala Halligan, chief film critic and reviews editor
All Good
Dir. Eva Trobisch
This gripping debut from Germany’s Eva Trobisch stars Aenne Schwarz as a woman who refuses to let herself become a victim, even as it slowly destroys her. Contact: Films Boutique
Tim Grierson, senior US critic
Her Smell
Dir. Alex Ross Perry
Reteaming with his Queen Of Earth star Elisabeth Moss, writer/director Alex Ross Perry crafts an even more extreme portrait of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Her Smell follows its protagonist into a hell of her own making — and then floors us with its transcendent ending. Contact: Voltage Pictures
Allan Hunter
The Bread Factory, Parts 1 & 2
Dir. Patrick Wang
The Independent Spirit Awards nominations brought some well-deserved attention to Patrick Wang’s two-part ode to the arts. The story of two women fighting to retain funding for their small-town arts centre reflects on the threat of gentrification and the importance of culture in building a sense of community. Contact: Vanishing Angle
Wendy Ide
Amateurs
Dir. Gabriela Pichler
With its winning combination of feisty humour, guerilla filmmaking and young women of colour making their voices heard, the second film from Gabriela Pichler, about two girls who set out to make a promotional video for their small town, is a maverick delight. It captures an unabashed joy in the act of creating. Contact: LevelK
Lee Marshall
One Day
Dir. Zsofia Szilagyi
One of the year’s best women’s films, in every sense of the term, this tough little gem by first-time Hungarian director Zsofia Szilagyi premiered in Critics’ Week at Cannes, but risks being underseen given its unsexy ‘36 hours in the life of a working mother’ premise. An object lesson into how to turn ordinary life into suffocating drama. Contact: Films Boutique
Lisa Nesselson
To The Ends Of The World
Dir. Guillaume Nicloux
Having survived a massacre in Indochina in 1945, Gaspard Ulliel’s gaunt French soldier hunts his nemesis who works with Ho Chi Minh. The concrete and existential dilemmas of war drip from every gorgeous, anxiety-infused frame. Contact: Orange Studio
Jonathan Romney
Sophia Antipolis
Dir. Virgil Vernier
One from a new French director who comes closer than anyone to capturing the social and psychic turbulence of a changing nation. Set in an enterprise zone a stone’s throw from Cannes, it is an ensemble drama about various characters desperately seeking meaning — in apocalypse cultism, in cosmetic surgery, in vigilante violence and racism. Intensely troubling, intensely of the moment. Contact: mk2 Films
Sarah Ward
Acute Misfortune
Dir. Thomas M Wright
The life, work and personality of provocative painter Adam Cullen were never going to inspire a standard biopic, but Acute Misfortune is a bold, uncompromising effort even by the standards of the controversial late Australian artist. Based on journalist Erik Jensen’s chronicle of their working relationship, it interrogates the contradictions of its two central figures. Snowtown’s Daniel Henshall is in blistering form as Cullen. Contact: Maze Film Sales
Our critics’ favourite films and documentaries of the year will be live on Screen International later this week.
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