Synopsis

Melrick, an unruly 13-year-old boy living in Stains, France, spends his summers at his grandmother’s house in French Guiana. He loves drumming — in no small part because his uncle Lucas, who tragically died 11 years prior, was also a drummer. As Melrick’s awareness of his family’s devastating past grows, he searches for ways to pay tribute to his history, culture, and heritage. Through a blend of intimate invented scenarios and carefully observed documentary footage, director Maxime Jean-Baptiste deftly crafts a heart-wrenching, deeply human portrait of a family and of a community committed to the anti-colonial struggle trying to reconcile their grief with an impulse for revenge. Listen to the Voices is urgent, beautiful, and filled with humanity.

Synopsis

During the hot Corsican summer of 1995, teenager Lesia is whisked away from the beach to a secret villa. Initially nonplussed, she’s excited when she realizes the reason for this sudden departure: she’s going to spend time with her father. Wanted by the authorities for his ties to violent, criminal acts, he’s hiding out in a compound. And although she’s not allowed to make phone calls to the outside world, Lesia is thrilled for some quality time with her outlaw dad. But when war erupts in the underworld, the two are forced to face one another as their familial bond is brought to its breaking point. The idyllic, sun-baked island serves as the backdrop for this explosive drama mixed with a heart-pounding coming-of-age thriller, anchored by a tour-de-force performance from newcomer Ghivanna Benedetti and directed with assurance and precision by Julien Colonna.

Synopsis

Iconoclastic French filmmaker Leos Carax (Holy Motors, ChicagoIFF 2012 Gold Hugo winner) reflects on his work and life in this personal cinematic essay. Nodding to the late style of New Wave master Jean-Luc Godard, whose voice can be heard on the soundtrack, the film assembles footage from Carax’s work and situates it within the broader history of cinema. Originally commissioned for an exhibition hosted by Paris’s Pompidou Center, the museum asked the auteur to respond to a simple question: “Where are you at, Leos Carax?”

No subject is off limits, no idea too small or large. The result is a dazzling, playful masterpiece of freely associative montage that includes everything from nostalgic film clips to heartbreaking voicemail recordings to ecstatic spectacles of dancing puppets. Essential viewing for fans and newcomers alike. Just be sure to stay for the post-credits sequence.

Synopsis

Rio de Janeiro, early 1970s. The Paivas family lives under the tightening grip of Brazil’s military dictatorship. Rubens is a former politician, and his wife Eunice (Fernanda Montenegro) is devoted to their five children. They live an enchanted life by the beach surrounded by friends and family, and their humor and affection appear to be their only forms of resistance to the increasing oppression that surrounds them — until the day a violent and arbitrary act changes their lives forever.

In his first fiction film since 2012’s On the Road, the acclaimed director of Central Station and The Motorcycle Diaries delivers another powerful political and human drama about his home country, lead by a stunning performance from Central Station star Fernanda Montenegro as the matriarch who must reinvent herself to carve out a new destiny for her family. A gripping tale of Brazil’s dark history, I’m Still Here marks a forceful and masterfully crafted return for the Brazilian auteur.

Synopsis

The earthy tones of untamed nature, shot with stunning vibrancy by filmmaker Sean Price Williams, color a nameless medieval village somewhere in England that seems to exist out of time. A tight-knit community of villagers is suspicious of outsiders, and spend their days laboring for the generally affable landowner Charles Kent. Things begin to change when Kent’s nefarious cousin claims ownership over the land and installs plans for massive change. A cartographer is hired, maps are drawn, and the architecture of profit-driven, capitalistic agriculture begins to manifest.

Rich, textured visuals and impeccable performances create a lived-in universe that feels uncannily adjacent to our own. Unfolding over the course of a single hallucinatory week, the English-language debut of “Greek Weird Wave” godmother Athina Rachel Tsangari (Attenberg, 2010) is a breathtaking, atmospheric fable that satirizes modernity and its chaotic fallout.