Redoubtable

Michel Hazanavicius : 2017
Le Redoutable

Paris 1967. Jean-Luc Godard, the maker of À bout de souffle, Le Mépris and Pierrot le fou, is idolised by critics and intellectuals. The leading filmmaker of his generation, he is now shooting La Chinoise with the woman he loves, Anne Wiazemsky, 20 years his junior. They are happy, attractive, in love, they marry. But the film's reception unleashes a profound self-examination in Jean-Luc. The events of May '68 will amplify this process, and the crisis that shakes the filmmaker will transform him profoundly, from a star cineaste to a Maoist artist entirely outside the system, as misunderstood as he is incomprehensible. Michel Hazanavicius's feature premiered in competition at Festival de Cannes 2017.

Jupiter's Moon

Kornél Mundruczó : 2017
Jupiter holdja

A young immigrant is shot down while illegally crossing the border. Terrified and in shock, wounded Aryan can now mysteriously levitate at will. Thrown into a refugee camp, he is smuggled out by Dr Gabor Stern, an errant doctor who has been suspended from his job at the hospital following a fatal accident during a surgical operation. After discovering Aryan's prodigious gift and putting his initial astonishment to one side, this man, who is totally devoid of any faith, decides to use this miracle for lucrative purposes. Pursued by enraged camp director László, the fugitives remain on the move in search of safety and money. Inspired by Aryan's amazing powers, Gabor takes a leap of faith in a world where miracles are trafficked for small change. As the levitations and miracles continue, there is a gradual change in Gabor, who becomes aware of the "Christlike" nature of this "young prince" by his side – who all the while is searching for his father after he disappeared during the border crossing. Kornél Mundruczó's feature premiered in competition at Festival de Cannes 2017.

Hikari

Naomi Kawase : 2017
Radiance

Misako Ozaki is employed by the company White Light to write audio descriptions for blind cinema goers. Among the consultants who evaluate her work and offer guidance is Masaya Nakamori, a renowned photographer struggling to come to terms with the fact that he is losing his sight. Masaya tries to make the most of his last remaining glimmers of vision to continue working with his Rolleiflex. Meanwhile, Misako is bearing her own burden of grief after losing her father a few years ago, and she is anxious about the advancing illness of her mother, who suffers from Alzheimer's and lives under supervision in the countryside despite exhortations that she should be placed in a care home. Misako then discovers Nakamori's photographs, who will strangely bring her back to her past. Together, they will learn to see the radiant world that was invisible to her eyes. Naomi Kawase's feature was winner of the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury when it premiered in competition at Festival de Cannes 2017.

Happy End

Michael Haneke : 2017

Gradually succumbing to dementia, Georges Laurent, the octogenarian patriarch of the Laurents, an affluent bourgeois family, is uncomfortably sharing his palatial manor in Calais, the heart of the infamous migrant jungle, with his twice-married son, Thomas, and Anne, his workaholic daughter who has taken over the family construction business. Divorced and frigid, Anne has to handle the impact of a disastrous workplace accident caused by her disappointing son Pierre's negligence, while at the same time, the urgent hospitalisation of Thomas's ex-wife from a mysterious poisoning, leads his sulky 13-year-old daughter, Eve, to live with her father and his new wife, Anaïs. Undoubtedly, in this family, everyone has a skeleton in the closet, and as the fates of the Laurents enmesh with insistent and ignoble desires, a peculiar and disturbing alliance will form. But in the end, some secrets are bigger than others. Michael Haneke's feature premiered in competition at Festival de Cannes 2017.

Frost

Šarūnas Bartas : 2017

The story of a young man who has never experienced war but has grown up in its shadow. He enters a journey of discovery and sacrifice, crossing borders between countries, between people. Rokas and Inga, a couple of young Lithuanians, volunteer to drive a cargo van of humanitarian aid from Vilnius to Ukraine. When plans change and they find themselves left to their own devices, they cross the vast snowy lands of the Donbass region in search of allies and shelter, drifting into the lives of those affected by the war. They approach the frontline in spite of the danger, all the while growing closer to each other as they begin to understand life during wartime. Šarūnas Bartas's feature premiered at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at Festival de Cannes 2017.

Ava

Léa Mysius : 2017

13-year-old Ava is spending the summer on the Atlantic coast when she learns that she will lose her sight earlier than predicted. Her mother decides to behave as though nothing has changed so that they can spend the loveliest summer of their lives. Ava confronts the problem in her own way. She steals a large black dog belonging to a young man on the run. "Your field of vision is going to get smaller, you'll lose your night vision, and soon you'll lose your sight." The analysis of the ophthalmologist is final and cruel for Ava who is on holiday for 15 days by the sea with her mother Maud and sister, baby Inès. Caught in this spider's web, this black circle relentlessly closing in on her, the teenager's feelings and deepest desires, secret and violent, come racing to the surface in a diary she writes ("there are children playing in the garden. I want them to drown and for them to never be spoken of again") along with an attraction to a mysterious and laconic gypsy who lives in a cave under a blockhaus further along the beach where Ava goes sand yachting. Stealing the boy's black dog to get used to life as a blind person, the teenager pushes the boundaries of a life that up until then had been very sensible. Léa Mysius's feature debut was winner of the SACD Award when it premiered in competition at the Semaine de la Critique at Festival de Cannes 2017.

Hostages

Rezo Gigineishvili : 2017

The Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1983. Border guards are keeping an eye on a group of young Georgians who are enjoying a boisterous dip in the Black Sea. They are smoking cigarettes from the West and listening to the Beatles. They all long to lead independent, professional lives, free from the police state and their parental homes. The group includes doctors, actors, an aspirant for the orthodox priesthood, as well as Anna and Nika, who are about to marry. But their thoughts are all preoccupied by something else altogether: after the wedding they plan to board a scheduled flight in Tbilisi, hijack the aircraft at gunpoint and force the pilot to land in Turkey. Their fierce desire for freedom and an unfortunate chain of unexpected events lead to a national tragedy. A tense, atmospheric re-telling of the Tbilisi hijacking of 1983 depicting young Soviet citizens who see themselves crushed between the promise of Western culture and repressive Communist rule. The crisis ended with a storming of the airliner by Soviet special forces that resulted in eight dead. The surviving hijackers were subsequently tried and executed. Rezo Gigineishvili's feature premiered in the Panorama section at Berlin International Film Festival 2017.

Honeygiver Among the Dogs

Dechen Roder : 2016

They say she's incredibly beautiful and a real female demon. The things that Kinley, a cop, hears about the mysterious Choden who is the subject of his investigations are making him very curious. His boss has sent him to the Bhutanese district of Bumthang to look into the disappearance of a religious leader. In the eyes of the narrow-minded locals, newcomer Choden has long been a prime suspect. Armed with his mobile phone and his stoic disbelief in all the spiritual claptrap going on around him, Kinley meets her on a bus. But it's not this deliberately sober undercover cop who approaches her, but she who speaks to him – and promptly throws him completely off balance with all her metaphors about goddesses and animals. Dechen Roder's feature debut premiered at Busan International Film Festival 2016.

God's Own Country

Francis Lee : 2017

Young Johnny Saxby is running his ailing father's farm in Yorkshire. The communication between father and son reflects their adverse living and working conditions, the father's utterances mostly being restricted to terse criticism of his son. Johnny's grandmother plays her part stoically. A frustrated Johnny endures his strenuous daily routine. In a bid to escape the harsh daily grind, he has no-strings sex with men, or gets drunk at the local pub. In the spring, a farm hand is taken on for the lambing season. Romanian Gheorghe is the same age as Johnny, who at first eyes him with suspicion. The initial tension between the two men soon gives way to an intense relationship. This opens up completely new prospects but also presents new challenges for Johnny. Francis Lee's feature debut premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2017, and was winner of the Michael Powell Award for Best British Feature Film at Edinburgh International Film Festival 2017.