Karlovy Vary International Film Festival — A–Z of films

What is not said is every bit as important as what is, and we are invited to observe the numerous ways in which the characters communicate without words.

The long wordless opening of 2001 remains one of the most beautiful sequences on film.

Bukowska makes sure we become as fixated on Anna as she is on Witek, as cinematographer Tomasz Naumiuk's camera creeps ever closer to her, his stifling approach matched by dislocating sound design and Natalia Fiedorczuk-Cieslak's score.

Siam gives his film a strong sense of place, marked by chaos and flux - a city where you can drive past a "Welcome to Egypt" sign and army tanks within two blocks and where revolution may lead you to come full circle.

Despite its grey, flat light and general melancholy punctured by menace, An Elephant Sitting Still is, by the end considerably more optimistic than it first appears about humanity.

Despite the family fall outs and relationship fallout, these characters are winningly human.

Erffa's willingness to scrutinise her own motivations is what lifts this documentary above the ordinary.

Despite its entertainingly unusual premise, Billy The Kid And The Green Baize Vampires doesn't really hang together as a story.

The rituals set in motion at the start, also tune us into the wavelength of portent, so that a heron's feet on a rug or the sound of locusts carry at least as much threat as the site of a loaded gun.

This emerges as a piece of bravura filmmaking that tackles huge themes with style and intelligence while providing a compelling narrative drive.

An original and highly ambitious premise that maintains its grip your attention and imagination.

both a love letter to the documentarians from the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania... and a dialogue between the period in which these poetic pioneers were working and the present day.

Lee works the narrative with an ambivalence that borders on the inscrutable

The directors' intentions remain obscure; as always, one feels that by watching their work one is becoming a part of the experiment.

McAlpine is so eager that we experience the same sense of joy that she is that she over-editorialises, offering voice-over observations that are more distracting than deep.

Beautifully shot and articulated.

It's the boxy Apple Mac precursors that are the real stars in many ways. It's hard not to feel a warm glow of affection for them, assuming you are a viewer of a certain age.

The Zellner brothers...enter into a fascinating structural dialogue with the history of the genre.

Beautifully lit, Daughter Of Mine conjures up a tremendous sense of place, all salt breezes, scrubland and golden sand.

Bitokov develops the shifting, brooding relationships of the men well but other elements of the story are given short shrift.

The film carries a message about the importance of tolerance, love and a healthy dose of silliness in the face of the darker elements of modern life.

Nemec knows that, in the real world, most people's trains of thought don't move steadily from one place to another like a teleplay but instead flit about, throwing up a murmur of a memory here, the whisper of a fantasy there.

Each successive scene hits you over the head with the ferocity of the action.

While Farhadi certainly knows how to spin a web of intrigue, deceit and suspicion, the narrative has a tendency to leap from strand to strand, often leaving the audience stumbling in its wake.

Drink in the imposition of expressionism through ergonomics, gaze up, craning at shots considered anew.

The film demands and receives a strong and forceful performance from Karelle Tremblay who is more than able to rise to the challenges.

Touching and brave.

Smoczynska remains one to watch. She has a signature style and an ability to generate a sense of odd estrangement from virtually nothing.

Directed with admirable understatement and restraint.

Well-written dialogue, strong acting all round and unobtrusive but taut direction give it real strength.

Ashby's daughter Leigh MacManus is one of the few contributors to offer an off-set perspective of the man - and it comes with a poignancy and beat of heartfelt truth that is lacking elsewhere.

Newcomer Tardiolo is splendid in the lead.

Highlander cannot be faulted for its boldness, trying to reinvent the genre by dragging it kicking and screaming into the modern age.

Sound fades into nothing and the pace slows

Patrick Orth's cinematography gives this a beguiling warmth but it's really Löw's performance that makes it work.

Kid-Thing is all about kid-think, with David Zellner keeping his main character's child perspective front and centre at all times.

What remains true now, as it was then, is the scale and scope of the thing.

One thing I particularly enjoyed was that it balances its study of Will with an exploration of Tom’s coming of age, while never making Will’s decision to drop out morally clear-cut.

I'm not sure it constitutes scholarship in and of itself, but it is certainly (as with all good documentary) a satisfying look at something hereto unseen.

Teles runs the gamut of emotions. We don't need to hear her discuss how she is feeling, we can see it written on her face

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.

Deadpan absurdity, everyday madness and enlightenment through routine merge in an attempt to answer the big questions of life.

The film only lives up to about 80% of the promise whereas I wanted 150%.

Gilliam’s script cannot quite stand the excesses of his own imagination.

Both Rodriguez and Rohana deliver delicate, nuanced performances in a story that revolves in large part around friendship.

I was won over by the whole approach of this confident sophomore feature pretty early on, from the witty, frank but also very tender script to the great casting and performances.

The director has an aptitude for taking a dash of the familiar and giving it an individual twist.

This is astonishing filmmaking.

This film is as much about Nina coming to understand herself fully as a woman and as a whole, independent person as it is about her sexuality.

A film that understands its audience exceptionally well.

Fyrogeni is brittle and intense in the central role, carrying herself in the slightly bent, over-cautious manner of someone continually expecting blame.

Yannis Drakopoulos is on fine form in the central role and there are some great supporting performances.

Definitely one of Arnie's best and a landmark action movie.

Mansky's bigger picture about the manipulation of a nation is crystal clear.

If it doesn't make sense terror dissolves into a puddle of giggles

Like Bergman's work, it might initially seem dry, but it's as rich in wit as it is in insight.

Overton uses the visuals of sign language well, showing how they offer real freedom of expression for the previously sidelined Libby and, at one point, kills the sound completely to immerse us fully in her world.

By simply observing the men as they move around, the film avoids over-interpretation, working hard to leave space for each person watching to find their own narrative as to why each man might have chosen this sport.

A fast, furious and occasionally hilarious angster comedy.

There's a strong sense of isolation from the start in Fisher's film.

Hall makes you feel the constant battle between exhaustion, frustration, and compassion,

There is artistry here and an absence of cliche.

Aris is observant and adept at balancing emotions, knowing when to pull the camera viewpoint back to give both his subjects and the viewer some space.

Slaboshpytskiy goes to show, first through Anna and then the actions of Sergey that some transactions can hold a lot more - and worse - than we have bargained for.

An astounding film.

Brunner clearly loves Norman - art for art's sake! - but fails to communicate how others have come to tolerate him.

There is strangeness here but of an intriguing rather than repellent sort.

Annemarie Jacir's characters may not leave the city of Nazareth as they take a circular road trip in Wajib but the emotional distance they travel is considerable.

Landscape and music and everyday objects are used to splendid effect.

There's a refreshing lack of sentimentality in the way Omerzu captures his duo of protagonists.

This is a very particular film - one where particles of detail crystallise into observation, meaning and import accreting like nacre around grit, producing a pearl, a natural jewel.