Synopsis

Remaking a classic Iranian film in Tajikistan, the director insists that his movie replicate the original in every detail, down to shot compositions and period-specific props, including one real gun. Worried about bringing a live weapon onto the set, the film’s armorer hopes to swap in a replica undetected as a cavalcade of extras arrives and a curious young woman demands an audition. Meanwhile, across town, a woman recovering from a car crash suspects that she’s the victim of a conspiracy. As the film shoot proceeds, reality and fiction begin to blur amid rising tensions stoked further by the presence of the gun.

Expertly weaving together disparate narrative threads, director Shahram Mokri (2020’s Careless Crime) returns to the Festival with this bracing meditation on cinema, art making, and modern life. Deploying masterfully choreographed long takes (some clocking in at over twenty minutes), surreal visual effects, and a wry, winking sense of humor, Black Rabbit. White Rabbit layers stories within stories within stories, all building toward an unforgettable, showstopping climax.

Synopsis

Fresh off a best director win at Fantasia for Hadrah Daeng Ratu, the prolific horror filmmaker at its helm, The Book of Sijjin and Illiyyin brings gross-out gore to an Indonesian story of black magic revenge that tips the scales on the delicate balance between good and evil.

In the Islamic faith, the Book of Sijjin tallies transgressions while the Book of Illiyyin keeps track of pious deeds. In this blood-soaked tale of a stepdaughter’s brutal retribution against the family that tormented her for twenty years, the once-meek Yuli transforms from docile servant to hell-bent destructress. When her stepmother’s death leaves her at the mercy of her even crueler stepsister, Yuli seeks the help of a shaman who instructs her in a ritual that will send a powerful jinn after Yuli’s tormentors. One by one, the family members die horrific deaths. Only the devout granddaughter stands in the way of the force of black magic as the narrative culminates in a fierce battle between heaven and hell, religion and folk tradition.

With striking cinematography that captures in detail every blood splatter and dirt smear, The Book of Sijjin and Illiyyin offers genre fans ample imagery to delight and disgust.

Synopsis

Bouchra, a coyote, is a queer Moroccan filmmaker based in New York City, navigating love and work in a world populated by other animal friends and family, including her hot ex-girlfriend, a cow, her best friend, a lizard, and her mom, Aicha, a coyote who lives back home in Casablanca. While Bouchra is finding her way in Manhattan, she has never resolved her mother’s lack of acceptance of her sexuality. It’s not that Bouchra has never come out; it’s that despite their closeness, her mom simply refuses to talk about it.

Brought to life in 3D animation, filmmaking team Orian Barki and Meriem Bennani, known for their 2020 lockdown art sensation 2 Lizards, have crafted a unique animated docu-fiction hybrid that is profoundly intimate, light-hearted, and touching, with a quirky surrealist edge. So what if they’re cool animals? Bouchra is a universal story of immigrant life, family conflict, and queer identity.

Synopsis

Set against the backdrop of an ever-changing Tokyo, Brand New Landscape is an assured, complex debut inflected with an ingenious injection of the surreal. Reeling after the death of their mother and long estranged from their father, twentysomething siblings Ren and Emi are left to their own devices. Making ends meet delivering flowers, Ren spends his days carrying the weight of his mother’s absence and simmering in anger over his father’s silence. Meanwhile, Emi is about to marry and put the past behind her. When an urban development project compels their father to return to the city, the siblings are forced to reckon with their painful family history as they are offered one last chance at reconciliation.

Featuring a collection of stunning performances and beautifully composed images, the film draws parallels between Tokyo’s shifting landscape and the family’s tumultuous path toward reunion. Filmmaker Yuiga Danzuka crafts a mesmerizing reflection on the price of progress and change at scales both large and small.

Synopsis

Fiercely independent eighty-year-old Spaniard María is a vibrant lifelong member of her beloved Tangier community, but her stability is threatened when daughter Clara arrives for a long-overdue visit. In dire financial straits after a divorce, Clara intends to sell the family home, left to her by her late father, and even begins liquidating the property’s antiques to hasten the proceedings. But María won’t go so easily. Determined to find the financial means to keep her apartment and win back her belongings, María sets out on a surprising, romance-fueled late-in-life adventure.

Screen legend Carmen Maura (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Volver) delivers an unforgettable performance suffused with warmth, humor, and gentle defiance in this crowd-pleasing story of a woman refusing to relinquish neither her independence nor her dignity. Making her Spanish-language debut, Moroccan director and Festival alum Maryam Touzani (The Blue Caftan) brings a palpable sense of place to the screen. She renders María’s colorful coastal enclave in bright hues and her winning ensemble of neighbors with affection, richness, and complexity.