Istanbul Film Festival — A–Z of films

Kindness and joy not always come to mind when one thinks of the fashion world. This is the rare portrait where they do. As the documentary unfolds, we marvel at the diversity, the celebratory mood.

Beautifully observed, Sadaf Foroughi's feature début explores the way that, even in societies explicitly controlled by men, it's often women who enforce social rules and seek to control one another's behaviour.

While the odds are, no doubt, stacked against her, Berneri gives Alanis a real sense of agency.

The feeling of exposure to evil never fades

Erick Zonca is less interested in solving the mystery than in exploring the damaged psyches of Visconti and Bellaile.

A great story, however flawed.

Turkish director Tolga Karaçelik shows a fine ear for family dynamics as well as a joyously off-the-wall sense of humour that ensures even though we've taken similar movie road trips in the past, this one feels fresh.

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

As a metaphor for the way the world views changing relationships and mores the film is affecting.

There is nothing charming left in this all-is-lost and boys-will-be-boys scenario when violence perpetuates itself and decency is nowhere to be found.

So much is going on that Nakache and Toledano are able to slyly set-up jokes in such a way that we barely notice them, so that when they pay off their impact is greater.

When the price of obedience is a life of lies where humiliation has no bounds, the pent-up desire explodes.

Dramatically powerful and thematically challenging, this is a remarkably impressive feature début.

Despite a star studded voice cast it lacks the comic invention required to make an impossible dream memorable

As an anti-hero Veijo is up there, thanks in no small part to Onnismaa's performance.

A mixed bag, as while Everett the actor masterfully evokes the mournful mix of decadence and decay of the last years of Wilde, Everett the filmmaker is, like so many before him, too much in love with the brilliant old rogue for his own good.

This film displays a deftness of touch.

Sonne, seemingly named for her role, moves through it with languorous ease.

Infinite Football is a film about outsiders and feeling on the fringe of society

Go in as a fan of Anderson's work and you will not be disappointed. Go in as a fan of film and you will likely be delighted.

The result is a slight but sweet evocation of a hazy day of summer when potential hangs like pollen in the air.

The way director Emmanuel Gras eases under the skin of his main subject makes for fascinating viewing.

This is a woozily shot, dislocating experience that in its best moments generates the sort of tense mental anxiety that Lynne Ramsay has made her calling card.

Often you see the truth in her face, not in her words.

It's as if I Spit On Your Grave has been transformed into a Kabuki drama.

Whatever else she may be, Maya clearly has no tolerance for bullshit - she seems constitutionally incapable of playing the game.

While the subject matter is grimly earnest there's a pleasantly breezy touch to Oğuz's script.

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.

Szumowska isn't aiming for subtly here and runs the risks of some of the townsfolk's attitudes slipping into broad brush character but the pathos at the film's heart for Jacek off-sets the problem.

The film certainly wears its metaphors on its sleeves - you have to admire that.

No Date, No Signature is a moral maze in which superb performances mean we can never lose sight of the human impact of what might seem like logical decisions.

Popescu's film isn't about loud recriminations but the way that lives can disintegrate by degrees.

German director Wim Wenders allows Paris, Texas to unfurl with such assured calm that each delicate narrative revelation, no matter how trivial or terrible, seems a natural and almost obvious progression.

Without a doubt, Pesce is one of the most exciting young directors to emerge in recent years.

There is satire here but this the director takes a jokes first, social comment second approach.

All art is, by it's very nature, indulgent but this 70-minute suffocatingly dull tone poem is SO indulgent it's akin to masturbating furiously in public.

Even if the facts are fiction, you still get the sense of a man who is driven, at least in part, by an urge to bring some sort of happiness by shooting film rather than bullets.

Assur is adept at creating striking images - such as the shadows of the ravens of the title on a barn wall or the threat of violence posed by a piece of machinery.

Muayad Alayan's beautifully observed, studiously discomfiting film has a lot to say about power and privilege.

The craft, the knowledge, the deep communication with the animal, shown without words - this is breathtaking, transcendent cinema.

A vivid illustration of just how close life can come to mockumentary when you start to scrutinise it.

Kain's finely judged performance is a joy to watch.

Playing a game for your life is a beautiful metaphor. Of course, it wouldn't have been the same in a squash court.

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

A film which makes you rethink your perceptions and encourages you to ponder deeper questions of humanity.

Time and place hold both no and every meaning in Christian Petzold's latest film.

Palacio also understands the resonance of small objects for those who have nothing and uses this to heighten the impact of their situation on us.

The tone is deliberately odd blending the naturalism of the day-to-day emotions of relationships and grief, with the altogether more heightened tensions of a revenge thriller, while still keeping a cheeky eye on the absurdity of a mooning garden gnome.

That the biggest surprise of the film is not a plot point at all but the appearance of someone famous in a cameo role, speaks volumes.

A harrowing but ultimately uplifting portrayal of the naive optimism of faith and its pros and cons.

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.

It quite subtly toys with the iconography of the genre - poking at the outlying parts of it, the parts dealing with "foreigness" and "home" rather than the more dependable elements of right and wrong.

Palmason accentuates the tedium by holding almost every shot far longer than necessary or shooting scenes in pitch black mines or against stark landscapes white with lime dust.

There's a certain degree of decompression in its storytelling, and a willingness to jump in time and space, and though the two are strong there's a weird sense that these are the highlights and story beats of a much longer television drama.

There's a potency to this film, largely thanks to a carefully judged performance by Marina Foïs as novelist and tutor Olivia, and a charismatic one by Matthieu Lucci as her most difficult student, Antoine.

Nothing plays out as you expect, with Ramsay maintaining an unsettling staccato that keeps both the action and the viewer on edge.