Synopsis

Formally bold and endlessly rich, veteran director Hong Sangsoo offers up his most aesthetically daring work to date with in water. A trio of friends venture to Jeju Island to make a film: Seongmo, the director and a recently retired actor, doesn’t have a script, and isn’t sure what his film should be about. Together, the three wander in search of a story, hoping the island’s rocky landscape will prove inspirational.  Walking alone, Seongmo encounters a young woman picking up trash, which gives him the creative spark he needs.

Returning to his signature themes of cinema and self-reflection, Sangsoo skews the focus of his lens to create intentionally blurred, abstracted, breathtakingly beautiful images.The result is a profound meditation on the mysteries of art, inspiration, and the enigmatic nature of the creative process.

Synopsis

Kaleb is a small-time grifter, selling sneakers to the residents of his building in the Paris suburbs and collecting exotic animals in his apartment. When he finds a large spider for sale in a neighborhood shop, he is fascinated by the creature and brings it home. But when the spider escapes from its shoe box, it begins to rapidly reproduce around the apartment and then the entire building, transforming the complex into an arachnid-infested web of nightmares. With the building sealed off from the outside world by the police, Kaleb and his friends must find a way to escape the hoard of spiders that not only keep multiplying, but are also growing exponentially in size.

Sébastien Vaniček’s debut feature is a creepy-crawly thriller set against the backdrop of a tight-knit community in the Paris suburbs. With spiders scuttling everywhere, Infested will leave you squirming in your seat.

Synopsis

A noir-tinged cat-and-mouse thriller told through the lens of tribal politics, Joram examines India’s Indigenous communities via the story of Dasru, a laborer from the remote jungle region of Jharkhand. When we first meet Dasru and his wife, Vaano, they’re living in a makeshift shelter on a construction site in Mumbai. Then a shocking — and seemingly random — act of violence sends Dasru fleeing through the city with the couple’s infant daughter, Joram, strapped to his back.

With nowhere else to go, Dasru makes his way back to his home state with Joram still in his arms. Father and daughter are pursued by Ratnakar, a Mumbai policeman whose modern sensibilities clash with the tribal lifestyle that still prevails in Jharkhand. (One scene sees the cop reacting in disbelief when a motorcycle driver tells him that locals have cell phones, but rarely use them.) But Dasru and Ratnakar have more in common than either man thinks. And what role does Phulo Karma, a local matriarch tacitly aligning with the government forces seeking to strip the region of its natural resources, play in Dasru’s plight?

Joram paints an expansive picture of its characters and their worlds, creating essential context for the power struggles and societal forces that shape the lives of everyday Indians caught up in — and left behind by — modernization.

Synopsis

A shocking, emotionally wrenching melodrama taken straight from the pages of history, Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara tells the story of Edgardo Mortara, a six-year-old Jewish boy in Bologna who was stolen from his parents to be raised by the Catholic Church in 1858. Edgardo was secretly baptized when he was a baby, according to his nurse, stoking anti-Semitic fears that he would be “sacrificed” by his parents for this transgression. His parents try desperately to get their son back, but the conspiracy to claim the child for Catholicism goes all the way to Pope Pius IX (Paolo Pierobon).

Veteran director Marco Bellocchio (Fists in the Pocket) handles Edgardo’s story with a blend of righteous anger and sumptuous craftsmanship, for a film that makes a lasting impression both through its story and its style.

Synopsis

English archaeological scholar Arthur has the uncanny ability of intuiting where to find hidden artifacts. Recently released from an Italian prison, he returns to a small Tuscan village; there, he reunites with a ragtag band of misfits who search for and unearth Etruscan relics buried with the dead. When the group encounter a treasure of immeasurable value, their attempts to traffic the objects bring their actions into sharp focus, and they must question their role in the plundering of history.

Alice Rohrwacher (Happy as Lázzaro) returns to the Festival with her signature rich and atmospheric storytelling, creating a dreamlike world teeming with ghosts and memory, a timeless space in which ancient history and the present become inextricably intertwined.