Synopsis

Displaced Palestinian cousins Chatila and Reda are stuck in Athens. They live in a crowded group home with other migrants, and steal and save what they can to pay for fake passports that will take them to Germany. When Reda relapses into his addictions and spends all their savings, Chatila devises what seems like a foolproof smuggling operation to earn the money back fast. Then things go terribly awry, and the cousins must concoct an even more sinister scheme in order to save themselves and their families back home.

With an intimate and naturalistic lens on the cousins’ bond and shared dream of a better life, To a Land Unknown is a tightly drawn thriller that presents an audacious, moving testament to the dire circumstances faced by migrants in purgatory.

Synopsis

Spanning one sunset to another, When the Light Breaks is a whisper-quiet rumination on love, beauty, and human perseverance in the face of disaster. Two lovers, Una and Diddi, look toward the horizon at the end of a long Icelandic summer day. Una, a passionate performance art student, dreams of the future, which begins with the two lovers announcing their well-kept secret relationship to their friends. Then a sudden, devastating tragedy befalls Reykjavík, and Una and her friends are forced to reckon with a broken new reality. Visionary director Rúnar Rúnarsson (Sparrows, 2015) deploys a haunting score while training his expressive, incisive camera on a talented young cast to create an intimate, hushed examination of loss and grief.

Synopsis

The light, the lives, and the textures of contemporary working-class Mumbai are explored and celebrated by writer/director Payal Kapadia, who won the Grand Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for her revelatory fiction feature debut.

Centering on two roommates who also work together in a city hospital—head nurse Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and recent hire Anu (Divya Prabha)—plus their coworker, cook Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), Kapadia’s film alights on moments of connection and heartache, hope and disappointment. Prabha, her husband from an arranged marriage living in faraway Germany, is courted by a doctor at her hospital; Anu carries on a romance with a Muslim man, which she must keep a secret from her strict Hindu family; Parvaty finds herself dealing with a sudden eviction from her apartment.

Kapadia captures the bustle of the metropolis and the open-air tranquility of a seaside village with equal radiance, articulated by her superb actresses and by the camera with a lyrical naturalism that occasionally drifts into dreamlike incandescence. All We Imagine as Light is a soulful study of the transformative power of friendship and sisterhood, in all its complexities and richness.

Synopsis

In the wake of his mother’s death, Rein moves from the Netherlands to a ski town in the Swiss Alps. There, he is immersed in nature, leading a quiet life teaching snowboarding and befriending visiting skiers. Then his father comes to visit for the first time, rupturing Rein’s tranquil bubble with his domineering presence and heavy baggage from their shared past. When the two embark on a day of backcountry skiing, their tense, competitive rapport reaches a breaking point — until nature threatens to put their petty power struggle into perspective.

With stunning cinematography that captures the intimidating and immense grandeur of the Swiss Alps in winter, Alpha deftly explores the age-old battle of man vs. man vs. mountain. A fight for dominance hangs over this simmering family drama that morphs into a gripping adventure thriller.

Synopsis

Defamed actress Elisabeth (Renate Reinsve, The Worst Person in the World) is abruptly called into a parent-teacher meeting at school. There, she is presented with scathing allegations about the behavior of her six-year-old son Armand. A tangled web of accusations between parents and faculty ensues, but who can say with certainty what really happened? As it becomes increasingly clear that much more is at stake, Elisabeth struggles to uncover the truth, and she is drawn into a chaotic fight for redemption where desire, madness, and obsession prevail.

Writer-director Halfdan Ullmann-Tøndel’s striking debut feature shrewdly unfurls with a keen observation of the quirks, pettiness, and rivalries inherent in human nature. Surrealist moments are dotted throughout, alternately providing flashpoints of comedy and consternation in this tension-filled, angst-fueled drama.