Synopsis

Day after day, 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) projects on her bedroom walls the moments of easy-to-miss beauty she’s forever filming on her phone. Bailey is a born artist, but to find that path, she’ll need to scale some obstacles: a young, unsteady father (Saltburn’s Barry Keoghan), marrying yet again and full of get-rich-quick schemes. A peer group flirting with petty crime. A housing project designed to curb imagination. Life is hardening Bailey by the hour, so it’s a surprise when a soft-spoken, gender-bending stranger named Bird (Franz Rogowski, Passages) alights in her ‘hood, offering friendship while investigating his own painful past. Could this childlike free spirit be Bailey’s guide into a happier life? Or is Bird more complicated than that?

Director Andrea Arnold, a past award winner at the Chicago International Film Festival and at Cannes, returns to the world of hardscrabble adolescence she so vividly explored in Fish Tank and American Honey, both modern classics. But Bird also sees Arnold fly in new directions, blending fiery first-timers with famous faces in her cast, probing further into fluid identities, and scouring the dead ends and concrete jungles of Bailey’s world for new possibilities of grace and redemption.

Synopsis

In spite of the daily challenges they face – from physical to financial – married couple Sassi (Sasson Gabay) and Effi (Asi Levi) have found an emotional equilibrium in their relationship. Sassi’s son, who has escaped to Europe for safety, ran up an enormous gambling debt, which the two work assiduously to help him pay off. By day, Sassi drives a recycling truck, and Effi is employed at the local pool as a physical therapist. At night they join forces, cooking side-by-side for their prepared foods catering service. Even Sassi’s impotency (the result of prostate surgery) is something they approach with love and humor.

This delicate balance is threatened when two young men burst back into their lives – their grandson, who unexpectedly returns from Europe, and one of Effi’s former students – reopening past wounds and reawakening dormant desires. The ever-perceptive chronicler of human nature and relationships, Shemi Zarhin (Aviva My Love, ), returns to the Festival for the fourth time with this wry and empathy-infused story of love, forgiveness, and the possibility of bliss.

Synopsis

Sir Steve McQueen’s Blitz follows the epic journey of George (Elliott Heffernan), a 9-year-old boy in World War II-era England whose mother Rita (Saoirse Ronan) sends him to safety in the English countryside. George, defiant and determined to return home to his mom and his grandfather Gerald (Paul Weller) in East London, embarks on an adventure, only to find himself in immense peril. Meanwhile, a distraught Rita searches for her missing son.

Featuring impressive attention to period detail and empathetic performances from its all-star cast, Blitz is an inspiring, heartfelt tale of bravery and perseverance in the face of insurmountable odds, as McQueen’s signature visual style conjures up an immersive vision of wartime London.

Synopsis

In a small village in southern Egypt, a group of girls form a street theater troupe as both a creative outlet and a fearless act of defiance. Challenging the patriarchal norms of their conservative Coptic Christian community, the girls dream of becoming actresses, dancers, and singers. They take to the dusty roads of their town to enact short plays that offer provocative challenges to passersby, asking questions like why a girl cannot marry the boy she loves.

Shot over four years with extraordinary access to its subjects, Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir’s film follows these brave girls from adolescence to adulthood, charting the complex and myriad ways in which each must navigate growing up as they form romantic partnerships and  face the social demands of womanhood. As feminist empowerment and aspirational dreams collide with the sobering realities of life, The Brink of Dreams offers a poignant and absorbing coming-of-age story of female solidarity and youthful rebellion. Winner of the top documentary prize at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.

Synopsis

An overwhelmed new mother partners with two baby traffickers to find the perfect well-paying parents for her infant in this heartbreaking human story.