Synopsis

Dita lives in a large household with her girlfriend, her girlfriend’s daughters, and a group of other queer misfits in the North Macedonian capital. When circumstances force Dita to become the caretaker of the two troublemaking daughters, the reluctant adults of the house must figure out a way to keep this unlikely family safe from a society that is not ready to accept them.

Explosive clashes between the strong-willed, the fiercely independent, and the culturally at odds form a vibrating orchestral narrative that tests the household’s alliances and bonds. Goran Stolevski (You Won’t Be Alone) returns to the Festival with a chaotic and remarkably tender portrait of a found family and the powerful ties that bind those pushed to the margins of society.

Synopsis

In the heart of battle-ravaged Ukraine, a minivan picks up civilians, each with their own unique story, as they journey away from their homes to safer points unknown. Filmed almost entirely inside his vehicle, Polish aid worker-turned-filmmaker Maciek Hamela eschews depictions of carnage in order to capture the psychological costs and tragic consequences of the Russian invasion. Squashed in Hamela’s backseat, a family sheds tears over abandoning their cow. A young man speaks stoically about being tortured by Russian soldiers. Five-year-old Sanya has stopped speaking. As Hamela’s taxi navigates checkpoints, minefields, and Russian attacks, In the Rearview displays faces — young and old, devastated and resilient — offering a moving and sublime reflection of humanity in the midst of war.

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 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.