New Directors/New Films — A–Z of films

Scenes don't run fully to their end or don't quite start at the beginning, the drama often whisked somewhere else as we're about to reach what more mainstream films would consider the small moments of climax.

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.

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.

It is, presumably, his desire for realism that leads him to cross what will be a bridge too far for many audiences.

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

By looking at what would lie outside of the traditional framework of most documentaries, Ross builds a much more absorbing picture of people fully embedded within an environment.

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

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

Jonckeere is ebullient in the lead yet there's a subtlety to her performance that communicates Milla's gradual passage from a life driven by instinct to one where she must take responsibility not only for herself but for her son.

Taut, tense, perhaps less constructed than engineered.

Like so many anthology films, it suffers from the fact that the sections are uneven, with the middle segment soaring high above the two bookend stories.

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.