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New Directors/New Films · 2017

New Directors/New Films 2017

Feature Films

Programme

28 films · 9 reviews

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4 Days In France

A mysterious, humorous, and erotic road movie in which a man sets out without any clear destination, guided only by the connections he forges with strangers on a hookup app, with his lover in hot pursuit.

(Country: France; Year: 2016; Director: Jérôme Reybaud; Writer: Jérôme Reybaud; Stars: Pascal Cervo, Arthur Igual, Fabienne Babe, Nathalie Richard, Laetitia Dosch, Liliane Montevecchi, Jean-Christophe Bouvet, Marie-France, Bertrand Nadler, Dorothée Blanck, Florence Giorgetti, Mathieu Chevé, Olivier Galinou, Corinne Courèges, Emilien Tessier)

Araby (Arábia)

The story of ex-con and eternal optimist Cristiano, as he journeys across Brazil in search of work and self-knowledge.

(Country: Brazil; Year: 2017; Director: João Dumans, Affonso Uchoa; Writer: João Dumans, Affonso Uchoa; Stars: Aristides de Sousa, Murilo Caliari, Gláucia Vandeveld, Renata Cabral, Renan Rovida)

North American premiere

Album (Albüm)

A couple preparing to adopt create a false pregnancy album... which leads to trouble.

(Country: Turkey, France, Romania; Year: 2016; Director: Mehmet Can Mertoglu; Writer: Mehmet Can Mertoglu; Stars: Sebnem Bozoklu, Murat Kiliç)

Autumn Autumn

A young man and an older couple take a train from Seoul to the small town of Chuncheon. Across two separate threads, the film follows these protagonists to the temple of Cheongpyeong, a place full of memories for them all.

(Country: Republic of Korea; Year: 2016; Director: Jang Woo-jin; Stars: Yang Heung-ju, Lee Se-rang, Woo Ji-hyeon)

North American premiere

Beach Rats

Review preview for Beach Rats

British actor Dickinson – surely on the first step to a lot more film roles – slides seamlessly into Frankie’s groove, the accent and the body language spot on.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
A Brooklyn teen struggles with his sexuality.

(Country: US; Year: 2017; Director: Eliza Hittman; Writer: Eliza Hittman; Stars: Harris Dickinson, Madeline Weinstein, Kate Hodge, Neal Huff)

Full review

Centrepiece gala

Boundaries (Pays)

The lives of three women intersect on a small island.

(Country: Canada; Year: 2016; Director: Chloé Robichaud; Writer: Chloé Robichaud; Stars: Emily VanCamp, Serge Houde, Macha Grenon, Rémy Girard, Max Laferriere, Alexandre Landry, Carlo Mestroni, Yves Jacques, Micheline Lanctôt, Michael Rudder, Nathalie Doummar, Sophie Faucher, Karl Werleman, Jean-Guy Bouchard, Jules Philip)

By The Time It Gets Dark (Dao Khanong)

A film director and her muse who was a student activist in the 1970s, a waitress who keeps changing jobs, an actor and an actress are all connected to each other in hidden ways.

(Country: Thailand, Netherlands, France, Qatar; Year: 2016; Director: Anocha Suwichakornpong)

US premiere

The Challenge

Review preview for The Challenge

That aerial sequence is as thrilling as anything in Top Gun.

Andrew Robertson · 4 out of 5
Documentary follows wealthy Qatari sheikhs who moonlight as amateur falconers, with no expenses spared along the way.

(Country: Italy, France; Year: 2016; Director: Yuri Ancarani)

Full review

Diamond Island

A young man leaves his village to work in the construction industry and encounters his estranged older brother - who introduces him to the world of the middle class.

(Country: Cambodia; Year: 2016; Director: Davy Chou)

US premiere

The Dreamed Path (Der traumhafte Weg)

Two couples' lives become unexpectedly entwined.

(Country: Germany; Year: 2016; Director: Angela Schanelec; Writer: Angela Schanelec; Stars: Miriam Jakob, Thorbjörn Björnsson, Maren Eggert, Phil Hayes, Anaïa Zapp, Alan Williams, Petra Trenkel, Benjamin Hassmann, Michel Drobnik, Esther Buss, Stefan Butzmühlen, Ben Carter, Caroline Garnell, Helena Hentschel, Miriam Horwitz)

The Future Perfect

A Chinese teenager who has recently moved to Argentina, embarks on Spanish classes and, as she learns the language, imagines a constellation of possible futures.

(Country: Argentina; Year: 2016; Director: Nele Wohlatz; Writer: Pío Longo, Nele Wohlatz; Stars: Xiaobin Zhang, Saroj Kumar Malik, Mian Jiang, Nahuel Pérez Biscayart)

The Giant (Jätten)

Review preview for The Giant

The film moves deftly between humour and poignancy, generating a strong emotional response in its quieter moments.

Amber Wilkinson · 3 out of 5
Rikard is a 30-year-old man, severely deformed and suffering from autism, haunted by the loss of his mother. From time to time, he escapes from reality into an imaginary world where he is a 50m tall giant.

(Country: Sweden, Denmark; Year: 2016; Director: Johannes Nyholm; Writer: Johannes Nyholm; Stars: Christian Andrén, Johan Kylén, Anna Bjelkerud, Linda Faith, Moa Malan, Niclas Fransson, Gun Larsson, Bengt Carlsson, Stina Rangmar, Stina Elinderson, Pia Edlund, Leif Edlund, Bo Melin, Martin McFaul, Martin Högdahl)

Full review

Happiness Academy

Docufiction hybrid set at a retreat for the real-life Raelian Church.

(Country: France; Year: 2016; Director: Alain Et Kaori della Negra Et Kinoshita, Alain Della Negra, Kaori Kinoshita)

US premiere

Happy Times Will Come Soon (I tempi felici verranno presto)

Prisoners in the past are linked to the present when a woman finds a strange hole in the forest.

(Country: Italy, France; Year: 2016; Director: Alessandro Comodin; Writer: Alessandro Comodin, Milena Magnani; Stars: Sabrina Seyvecou, Erikas Sizonovas, Luca Bernardi, Carlo Rigoni, Marco Giordana, Paolo Viano, Marinella Cichello)

North American premiere

The Last Family (Ostatnia Rodzina)

A surrealist painter famous for his S&M themes tries to keep his suicidal son from harm.

(Country: Poland; Year: 2016; Director: Jan P Matuszyński; Writer: Robert Bolesto; Stars: Andrzej Seweryn, Dawid Ogrodnik, Aleksandra Konieczna, Andrzej Chyra)

The Last Of Us

Chronicle of an unnamed man's inadvertent journey into nature.

(Country: Tunisia, Qatar, UAE, Lebanon; Year: 2016; Director: Ala Eddine Slim)

North American premiere

Lady Macbeth

Review preview for Lady Macbeth

Just when you think you know this story, Oldroyd and Birch begin to show you that you don't.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
A woman sold into a loveless marriage develops a mind for murder after starting an affair.

(Country: UK; Year: 2016; Director: William Oldroyd; Writer: Alice Birch, based on the novel by Nikolai Leskov; Stars: Florence Pugh, Christopher Fairbank, Cosmo Jarvis, Naomi Ackie, Paul Hilton, Golda Rosheuvel, Anton Palmer)

Full review See: William Oldroyd interview about austerity and colour-blind casting in Lady Macbeth

Menashe

Review preview for Menashe

Rather than pick apart rituals... Weinstein simply lets us see them in action as part of the natural fabric of his life

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
A man faces losing custody of his son after the death of his wife.

(Country: US; Year: 2017; Director: Joshua Z Weinstein; Writer: Joshua Z Weinstein, Alex Lipschultz, Musa Syeed; Stars: Menashe Lustig, Ruben Niborski, Yoel Weisshaus) , Trailer

Full review See: Menashe co-writer/producer Alex Lipschultz on the challenges of making the film

Patti Cake$

Review preview for Patti Cake$

This film has plenty of hustle even though it sometimes lacks flow.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
A New Jersey kid dreams of making it as a rapper.

(Country: US; Year: 2017; Director: Geremy Jasper; Writer: Geremy Jasper; Stars: Danielle Macdonald, Bridget Everett, Siddharth Dhananjay, Mamoudou Athie, Cathy Moriarty, McCaul Lombardi, Wass Stevens)

Full review

Opening night

Pendular

The relationship between a dance artist and a sculptor.

(Country: Brazil, Argentina, France; Year: 2017; Director: Júlia Murat; Writer: Júlia Murat, Matias Mariani)

North American premiere

Person To Person

A record collector hustles for a big score while his heartbroken roommate tries to erase a terrible mistake, a teenager bears witness to her best friend’s new relationship and a rookie reporter, alongside her demanding supervisor, chases the clues of a murder case involving a life-weary clock shop owner.

(Country: US; Year: 2017; Director: Dustin Guy Defa; Writer: Dustin Guy Defa; Stars: Michael Cera, Abbi Jacobson, Philip Baker Hall, Michaela Watkins, Tavi Gevinson, Olivia Luccardi, Craig Butta, Ben Rosenfield, Hunter Zimny, Bene Coopersmith, George Sample III, Buddy Duress, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Eleonore Hendricks, Frank Mosley)

Closing night

Quest

Review preview for Quest

Olshefski's love of the family shines bright and proves infectious.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
Intimate portrait of a North Philadelphia family.

(Country: US; Year: 2016; Director: Jonathan Olshefski)

Full review

Sexy Durga

Thriller, chronicling a long, bad trip taken by a young couple on the run.

(Country: India; Year: 2017; Director: Sanal Kumar Sasidharan, Sanal Kumar Sasidharan; Writer: Sanal Kumar Sasidharan; Stars: Rajshri Deshpande, Bilas Nair, Vedh, Arun Sol, Sujish)

Strong Island

Review preview for Strong Island

Goes against the grain of modern crime documentaries.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
The filmmaker investigates the shooting of his brother.

(Country: US, Denmark; Year: 2017; Director: Yance Ford)

Full review

The Summer Is Gone (Ba yue)

A portrait of a family in Inner Mongolia in the early 1990s that doubles as a snapshot of a pivotal moment in recent Chinese history.

(Country: China; Year: 2016; Director: Dalei Zhang; Writer: Dalei Zhang; Stars: Weiyi Kong)

White Sun (Seto Surya)

On the occasion of his father’s funeral, Chandra returns to the village he left years earlier to join the Maoists, and finds himself united with the daughter he never met and revisiting uneasy relations with family members and neighbours.

(Country: Nepal, US, Qatar, Netherlands; Year: 2016; Director: Deepak Rauniyar; Writer: Deepak Rauniyar, David Barker; Stars: Dayahang Rai, Asha Maya Magrati, Rabindra Singh Baniya, Sumi Malla, Amrit Pariyar)

Wùlu

A Malian bus driver faces a stark choice when he discovers crime pays more than honesty.

(Country: France; Year: 2016; Director: Daouda Coulibaly; Writer: Daouda Coulibaly; Stars: Quim Gutiérrez, Dembele Habib, Ndiaye Ismaël, Ibrahim Koma, Ndiaye Mariame, Inna Modja, Olivier Rabourdin, Jean-Marie Traoré)

The Wound

Review preview for The Wound

Trengove strikes a good balance between showing the cultural importance, even though on the wane, of old-fashioned masculinity and personal drama between Xolani and Kwanda, slowly ratcheting up the tension to breaking point.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
Sexual repression and coming of age prove a dangerous mix for a small community.

(Country: South Africa; Year: 2017; Director: John Trengove; Writer: John Trengove, Thando Mgqolozana, Malusi Bengu; Stars: Nakhane Touré, Bongile Mantsai, Niza Jay Ncoyini)

Full review See: John Trengove interview about The Wound