This is another non-opinionated (so as not to tip my hand) list of movies I’m watching for a jury.
Close (Lukas Dhont, 2022). Two adolescent boys have the closeness of their friendship called out when the school term begins. The Belgian director seems to channel the style of the Dardenne brothers (Emilie Dequenne, star of the Dardennes’ Rosetta, has a significant supporting role), for understandable reasons.
Saint Omer (Alice Diop, 2022). A French writer attends the trial of an African immigrant accused of drowning her own child. Long courtroom sequences are punctuated with the writer’s struggle with the idea of turning this situation into a modern take on Medea.
Cairo Conspiracy (Tarik Saleh, 2022). Hollywood-ready intrigue about a religious student drawn into the lethal machinations behind choosing Egypt’s new Grand Imam.
Nostalgia (Mario Martone, 2022). A man in his 50s returns to Naples and an extremely delicate situation that has to do with the reasons he abruptly left 40 years earlier. The local Catholic pastor and the local gang kingpin are both very much mixed up in the trouble.
The Happiest Man in the World (Teona Strugar Mitevska, 2022). The setting is a daylong workshop for singles looking for a match in Sarajevo; the ghosts unearthed in this process are connected, inevitably, to the war in the 90s.
Victim (Michal Blasko, 2022). In a Czech city, a Ukrainian immigrant (Vita Smachelyuk) is on the verge of getting her permanent resident status, when her teenage son is wounded. The resulting spiral takes on a momentum that quickly gets out of her control.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »