If only Zanasi and co had put a little more faith in the psychological elements of the screenplay rather than worshipping at the altar of cheap laughs.
When a surveyor has a vision of the Virgin Mary, she is inspired to try to build a church on land marked for commercial development, sparking conflict.
Lucid is surprisingly coherent once the pieces start to come together, and it’s among the more successful experiments in this sort of portraiture.
Mia is a rebellious art student who struggles to create the ultimate project for a demanding professor. Desperate to find her artistic voice, she takes Lucid, a candy elixir, to access her creativity, but taps into something much darker.
Gonzalo Calzada's vividly atmospheric film is itself a space in which reality and dreams overlap, in which formal narrative structures break down as our heroine strives to gain control of her identity and destiny.
Natalia is a 19-year-old novice who reluctantly returns home to say goodbye to her dying father. However, when she meets up with her sister and her friends, she decides instead to travel the jungle and explore the spiritual world through ayahuasca.
Grant, who wrote the script as well as starring, submits completely to the logic of the role even as her character grows increasingly outraged by the absurdity of it all.
A suburban woman fights to be believed as she finds herself stalked by a threatening figure who returns to her house night after night.
Grandma is neither sweet nor innocent: a hard smoking, confrontational battleaxe with, nonetheless a heart of gold.
Set in New York City’s Chinatown, the film follows an ornery, chain-smoking Chinese grandma who goes all in at the casino, landing herself on the wrong side of luck… and in the middle of a gang war.
Besson proves he can still concoct a roller coaster ride that harnesses special effects to his creativity in a way that proves stimulating, arresting – and great fun.
A hardworking and exhausted nurse battles coworkers, clients and one impatient bus driver to learn her self worth as she chases the American Dream in Miami's Little Haiti neighbourhood.
There is some excellent work here of the sort that gets under your skin without you noticing, so that when the film abruptly shifts gears in the final scene, it hits you all at once.
Two desperate criminals navigate a dangerous industrial complex in real time, seeking redemption while facing mounting threats in this intense thriller.
Though it’s nicely drawn and the performances are good, especially from Sánchez, this is all fairly familiar stuff.
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.
In line with his economic storytelling, Russell has a gift for conveying little details through subtle performance notes where other filmmakers might telegraph intent.
A retail employee infiltrates the inner circle of an artist on the verge of stardom. As he gets closer to the budding music star, access and proximity become a matter of life and death.
It might be too much to expect a film to tell a bigger story, but that hope is borne in part because it doesn't really manage to tell a smaller one.
Luther Vandross started his career supporting David Bowie, Roberta Flack, Bette Midler, and more. His undeniable talent earned platinum records and accolades, but he struggled to break out beyond the R&B charts. Intensely driven, he overcame personal and professional challenges to secure his place amongst the greatest vocalists in history.
Durra isn't looking to make anything so simple as a romantic drama, though that element is there, but instead to consider what lies beneath Hana's words in terms as she grapples in the liminal space between her past and her future.
When British aid worker Hana returns to Luxor, a sleepy city on the banks of the Nile, she comes across Sultan, a talented archeologist and former lover. As she wanders, haunted by the familiar place, she struggles to reconcile the choices of the past with the uncertainty of the present.
Brunner not only confronts the sacred and the profane on the screen, but also boldly experiments with a real experience of faith.
Johannes, a man with the heart of a child, lives secluded in an Alpine hut with his mother. Daily life is governed by prayer and rituals but a tourist development threatens to poison their paradise.
This is a clear-eyed view of the choices Jesmark and those like him are facing, showing just how complex the situation is, cutting beyond work to community and culture.
A struggling Maltese fisherman faces tough choices about the future.
A work of such singular vision that it scarcely seems like the product of a team.
Widowed preacher and leader to a small mountain community, El Señor has preached to his followers that a new messiah will appear and shepherd them into a new era. His faith is absolute, regardless of how many false prophets he has to go through. But the faith of his three daughters is beginning to waver.
LX 2048 is at its best when exploring the ways in which two people who have obviously loved each other - and perhaps, on some level, still do - can seek so wilfully to destroy each other, even when they know that they too will be hurt in the process.
After being told that his heart is failing, a man living in a dystopian future world tries to resolve family issues and deal with an insurance policy that would see him replaced by a clone.
The improvised nature of the script also works in its favour, with the unpredictability for the actors themselves translating to tension on the screen.
A father takes his estranged son on a rafting trip into the wilderness that suddenly turns into a struggle for survival.
Lanthimos satirises our obsession with relationships and modern day electronic dating rituals although the results are not nearly as funny and knowing as the director clearly thinks.
In a dystopian near future, single people are obliged to find a matching mate in 45 days or are transformed into animals and released into the woods.
Max Ophuls' most controversial, if not his greatest work.
Colourful and genuinely revolutionary film, which shows off the considerable imagination and technical prowess of the director. Newly restored version is being show at NYFF 2008.
You can't help feeling British audiences may well embrace the film's oddness - and blatant anti-American stance - which while not always successfully executed, means there is rarely a dull moment.
Baby Cart At The River Styx mixes cheesy plot elements with a detailed recreation of historical and political elements, and silly special effects with gorgeous cinematography.
