Synopsis

The rambunctious Arabella, eight years old, feels like running away from her boring, distant parents. The disillusioned Holly, twenty-eight, has just been fired from yet another dead-end job; she claims her life took a wrong turn, not ending up the way she had dreamed it would when she was a kid. When the two meet by chance, Holly is convinced that Arabella is her younger self, and the mischievous little girl plays along. Their mission: to rewrite history. On the lam, they embark on an adventure to try to turn back time in the hopes that Holly might yet realize the special life she feels she deserves.

A stylized road movie full of impish hijinks, Carolina Cavalli’s sophomore feature is a whimsical, deadpan, and delightfully bizarre coming-of-age in reverse. Propelled by the dynamic duo of the parallel Hollys—and a surprising, hilarious appearance from Chris Pine speaking Italian—The Kidnapping of Arabella deftly balances the witty and the tender in an earnest exploration of the anxieties of growing up.

Synopsis

A spare, stripped-down parable shot on an iPhone, Kontinental ‘25 takes to the streets of Cluj, Romania, to survey the precarious state of contemporary morality. After receiving eviction orders from his shelter in an abandoned cellar, a man commits suicide. Orsolya, the city official responsible for carrying out the eviction, is plagued with guilt over his death. Seeking reassurance, she spends the next several days traversing the Transylvanian city, discussing the incident with an array of characters—-from bike messengers to friends and priests—in hopes of finding absolution.

Inspired by Roberto Rossellini’s Europa ‘51, the darkly comic social drama is both incisively observed and impeccably performed, offering a portrait of a city and society at a crossroads. Director Radu Jude (2023’s Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World), whose taboo-breaking Dracula is also screening at the Festival, infuses his script with ironic detail and wholly human characters to craft an astonishing exploration of personal responsibility in the face of societal crisis.

Synopsis

In this warm, emotional, and handsome film, Italian auteur Paolo Sorrentino reteams with actor Toni Servillo, the star of his Oscar-winning drama The Great Beauty, who delivers a tour-de-force performance as an Italian president taking stock at the end of his term. As he  reflects back on his life, he weighs his final acts, which might well determine his lasting legacy.

Servillo’s President Mariano De Santis, a former judge with an unimpeachable reputation as a man of honesty and integrity, is grappling with political decisions of great consequence in his last six months in office. Yet even as he wrestles with appropriate courses of action, Mariano finds his mind wandering to the early days of his romance with his late wife Aurora, whose infidelity 40 years earlier remains an open wound. His close friend Coco knows the identity of his wife’s lover but refuses to divulge the secret, leaving Mariano to wonder if he will ever gain closure.

With his finely wrought narratives, gorgeously detailed production design, and delight in the absurd, Sorrentino crafts a film, which, anchored by Servillo’s magnificent presence, transcends as an elegant, exhilarating, and thoughtful meditation on forgiveness and grace.

Synopsis

A single mother and her two daughters return to Taipei after several years of living in the countryside to open a stand at a buzzing night market. Each in their way will have to adapt to this new environment to make ends meet and maintain the family unity. But when their traditional grandfather forbids his youngest left-handed granddaughter from using her “devil hand,” generations of family secrets begin to unravel.

Synopsis

After iconoclastic artist Leonora Carrington trades English life for 1930s Paris, she falls in with giants of the Surrealist movement, including Salvador Dalí and André Breton. But it’s her passionate love affair with German painter Max Ernst that affects her life and work in the most profound manner. Their turbulent relationship sends her on a journey of self-discovery that will eventually take her to Mexico, where she finds a true sense of freedom—and her own unique artistic voice.

Working from the novel by Mexican author and artist Elena Poniatowska, directors Lena Vurma and Thor Klein chronicle key chapters in Carrington’s singular life, depicting the evolution of an artist with nuance and subtlety. Actress Olivia Vinall delivers a perfectly pitched performance as the story’s central figure, portraying Carrington both in her youth and as a more mature woman working in Mexico, where she emerged alongside Frida Kahlo as one of the country’s preeminent creative figures. With its insightful observations of a multifaceted talent whose distaste for the conventional enabled her to live as a true original, Leonora in the Morning Light gives Carrington her due.