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.

Synopsis

A tender rumination on the tenuous bonds of family, the changing Icelandic landscape, and the passage of time itself, The Love That Remains chronicles a year in the life of a family of five as the parents navigate their separation. Anna, an artist who works with natural materials to create large canvases, is frustrated with her professional life and hoping to land an exhibition. Her husband, Magnus, is often away working on a fishing trawler, and his extended absences put a strain on the family. As the love between Anna and Magnus fades, the couple and their three children are forced to redefine their relationships to one another.

Infusing the narrative with surreal flourishes, a dreamy piano score, stunning landscape photography, and a winning performance from Panda the dog, director Hlynur Pálmason (2022’s Godland) offers a meditative, tragicomic portrait of a family in crisis.