Vita & Virginia

Chanya Button : 2018

The affair and the friendship of authors Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West – both uncompromising in their insistence to live, love, and create to the fullest – constitutes one of the most fascinating relationships in literary history. The year is 1922. Though happily married, Vita is as notorious for her dalliances with women and iconoclastic attitudes toward gender as she is famous for her aristocratic ancestry and writerly success. Virginia, meanwhile, is a celebrated writer, publisher, and member of the Bloomsbury Group, those innovative moderns already revolutionising literature. When Vita receives an invitation to Bloomsbury, she is elated at the thought of meeting the enigmatic Woolf and, not surprisingly perhaps, becomes obsessed with the notion of seducing her. Between Virginia's mental health struggles and Vita's impulsiveness – and the concern of their husbands, families, and mutual friends – their romance is bound to be tumultuous. Yet tumult can fuel creativity and Vita's singular persona will eventually be channelled into Orlando, the novel their relationship inspired and one of Virginia's greatest works. Chanya Button's feature premiered in Special Presentations at Toronto International Film Festival 2018.

Maya

Mia Hansen-Løve : 2018

Gabriel is a 30-year-old war correspondent taken hostage and repatriated to Paris after four months of captivity in Syria. He believes he may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and on the advice of a psychiatrist, he travels to India to visit his godfather, Monty. Having lived there until the age of seven with his mother – who still lives there and runs an NGO in Mumbai – Gabriel decides to settle in Goa, in a bungalow by the sea, while he renovates a small house in the countryside. He encounters Maya, his godfather's 17-year-old daughter, a student who is travelling between London and Sydney in the middle of her studies, and a relationship gradually begins to stir, despite the decade or so between them. As Gabriel slowly adjusts to safety and society in India, he also reintegrates into normal life – and back into parts of his past that resurface during his trip. Mia Hansen-Løve's feature premiered in Special Presentations at Toronto International Film Festival 2018.

Jinpa

Pema Tseden : 2018

On the path of life, sometimes we meet someone whose dreams overtake our own to the point that they converge. This is a story of revenge and redemption. On an isolated road passing through the vast barren plains of Tibet, a truck driver who has accidentally run over a sheep chances upon a young man who is hitching a ride. As they drive and chat, the truck driver notices that his new friend has a silver dagger strapped to his leg; he comes to understand that this man is out to kill someone who wronged him earlier in life. As he drops the hitchhiker off at a fork in the road, little does the truck driver realise that their short time together has changed everything, and that their destinies are inexorably intertwined. A journey of awakening on the road to the future, occupying a realm where the boundaries between dream and reality are blurred and irrelevant. Pema Tseden's slow-paced and dream-like film, his sixth feature, was winner of the award for Best Screenplay when it premiered in competition in the Orizzonti section at Venice International Film Festival 2018.

C'est ça l'amour

Claire Burger : 2018
Real Love

Forbach, East of France. Mario, a man without much ambition, except where love is concerned, is back to square one after his wife left home. Now he must raise on his own his two daughters going through their adolescent years while going through some sort of a teenage crisis of his own. 14-year-old Frida blames her father for their mother's absence and she develops ambivalent feelings towards her new girlfriend. 17-year-old Niki will soon leave home. Until then, she lives the good life. Mario can't help but lose the women he loves. Yet they must all agree to let one another go. Can accepting to lose someone eventually lead to finding oneself? Claire Burger's first solo feature was winner of the Director's Award when it premiered in competition at Venice Days 2018.

Capri-Revolution

Mario Martone : 2018

It is 1914 and Italy is about to go to war. A commune of young Northern Europeans has found the ideal place for their exploration of life and art on the island of Capri. But the island has its own powerful identity, in the person of a young woman, a goatherd named Lucia. The film tells the story of the encounter between Lucia, the commune led by Seybu and the young village doctor. It also speaks of an island unique in the world, whose Dolomite cliffs plunge into the waters of the Mediterranean, and which at the start of the 20th century acted like a magnet for all those driven by ideals of liberty and progress, such as the Russians whom Maxim Gorky, in exile on Capri, was preparing for the revolution. Mario Martone's feature premiered in competition at Venice International Film Festival 2018.

Hello Apartment

Dakota Fanning : 2018

Ava enters the Brooklyn loft for the first time. It's empty. Freshly painted but old. Sun streams through the large windows, onto the hardwood floor, worn with marks from previous inhabitants. Ava sits down. This is now home. Her home. This is where she'll meet a boy and fall in love. This is where wine will be spilt at the party. This is where they'll scream at each other, and decide it's all over. The apartment will become a witness to Ava's personal history – her joy and sadness, hopes and disappointments – the kind of universal space we all find ourselves evolving into adulthood. The fifteenth commission from designer Miu Miu as part of "Women's Tales", a series of short films by women who critically celebrate femininity in the 21st century. Dakota Fanning's directorial debut screened at Venice Days 2018.

L'amica geniale

Saverio Costanzo : 2018
My Brilliant Friend

When the most important friend of her life appears to have vanished without a trace, Elena Greco, an elderly woman who lives in a house filled with books, turns on her computer and starts to write the story of herself and Lila, the story of a friendship born at elementary school in the 1950s. Set in a dangerous and fascinating Naples, the account that follows covers more than sixty years of life and attempts to unveil the mystery of Lila, Elena's brilliant friend, at once her best friend and worst enemy. Saverio Costanzo's TV drama was shown as a Special Screening, out of competition at Venice International Film Festival 2018.

Les estivants

Valeria Bruni Tedeschi : 2018
The Summer House

A large and beautiful property on the French Riviera. A place that seems out of time and sheltered from the rest of the world. Anna goes there with her daughter for a few days of vacation. Amidst her family, friends and the house staff, she has to handle her fresh break-up with her partner and the writing of her next film. Behind their laughter, anger and secrets emerge fears, desires and power relations. Everyone shuts out the rumblings of the world and must face the mysteries of their own existence. Valeria Bruni Tedeschi's feature premiered out of competition at Venice International Film Festival 2018.

Roma

Alfonso Cuarón : 2018

A turbulent year in the lives of a family in 1970s Mexico City. A vivid portrayal of domestic strife and social hierarchy amidst political turmoil, the film follows a young domestic worker Cleo from Mixteco heritage descent and her co-worker Adela, also Mixteca, who work for a small family in the middle-class neighbourhood of Roma. Mother of four, Sofia, copes with the extended absence of her husband, Cleo faces her own devastating news that threatens to distract her from caring for Sofia's children, whom she loves as her own. While trying to construct a new sense of love and solidarity in a context of a social hierarchy where class and race are perversely intertwined, Cleo and Sofia quietly wrestle with changes infiltrating the family home in a country facing confrontation between a government-backed militia and student demonstrators. Alfonso Cuarón's feature was winner of the Golden Lion when it premiered in competition at Venice International Film Festival 2018.

Doubles vies

Olivier Assayas : 2018
Non-Fiction

Set in the French publishing world, an editor and an author find themselves in over their heads, as they cope with a middle-age crisis, the changing industry and their wives. Alain, a successful Parisian publisher struggling to adapt to the digital revolution, has major doubts about the new manuscript of Léonard, one of his long-time authors – another work of auto-fiction recycling his love affair with a minor celebrity. Selena, Alain's wife, a famous stage actress, is of the opposite opinion. Overwhelmed by the new practices of the publishing world, the two men struggle to find their place in a society whose code they can no longer crack. Olivier Assayas's feature premiered in competition at Venice International Film Festival 2018.

Long Day's Journey into Night

Bi Gan : 2018
Di qiu zui hou de ye wan

After his father's death Luo Hongwu has returned to Kaili, the town of his birth from which he fled twelve years ago, triggering an avalanche of reminiscences. He begins the search for the woman he loved, and has never been able to forget. She told him her name was Wan Quiwen. Memories of the enigmatic and beautiful woman for whom he killed resurface, confronting him with unbearable revelations. Bi Gan's second feature premiered in competition in the Un Certain Regard section at Festival de Cannes 2018.

L'amour flou

Romane Bohringer & Philippe Rebbot : 2018

Romane and Philippe separate. After 10 years together, two children and a dog, they do not love each other anymore. Finally ... they are no longer in love. But they love each other anyway. A lot. Too much to really separate? In short ... it's vague. Then, under the watchful eye of those around them, they give birth to a "separation": two separate apartments, communicating through the room of their children! Can we separate together? Can one redo one's life without undoing it? A courageous, resonating and very moving dramatisation of the real-life separation by actors Romane Bohringer and Philippe Rebbot. Their directorial debut was winner of the Valois du public when it premiered in competition at Festival du Film Francophone d'Angoulême 2018.

Yara

Abbas Fahdel : 2018

Young Yara lives with her grandmother in a valley in northern Lebanon, where most of the inhabitants have either died or moved abroad. One day Elias, a young hiker, passes by the two women's farm. With him, Yara will experience the joys and pains of first love. An in-depth study of the everyday life of inhabitants cut off by the towering mountains, the coexistence of different religions in one and the same country, and the emigration of young Lebanese people far away from the Middle East, for political or economic reasons. A summertime romance between a country girl and a stranger who stumbles across the village after getting lost while out hiking. Abbas Fahdel's feature premiered in competition in the Concorso internazionale section at Locarno Film Festival 2018.

Easy Lessons

Dorrotya Zurbó : 2018
Könnyű Leckék

Kafia is 17 years old. Two years ago, she fled alone to Europe, to Hungary, in an attempt to escape a forced child marriage in Somalia. She has been living in a state children's home in Budapest ever since. She learns the language, goes to high school, prepares for the Hungarian graduation exam, and starts a modelling career. On the surface, everything seems fine. However, behind a beautiful and confident appearance lies a heavy heart. Kafia's repetitive daily routine revolves around constant dilemmas and self-doubt about leaving behind her Muslim culture and everything else she grew up with. As she allows the camera to get closer to her, the film slowly becomes an intimate confession. What does it mean, on the brink of adulthood, to break with your past and fully give yourself up to a new self in order to live in Europe? Dorrotya Zurbó's second documentary feature premiered at the Semaine de la Critique at Locarno Film Festival 2018, and screened in competition at Sarajevo Film Festival 2018.

Ága

Milko Lazarov : 2018

In the icy tundra of the Northern wilderness, reindeer hunter Nanook and his wife Sedna dream of reuniting with their daughter Ága, who left the slowly eroding traditional way of life a long time ago. In a yurt on the snow-covered fields, Nanook and Sedna live following the traditions of their ancestors. Their daily life is arduous, but they never complain. Instead, they tell each other the old legends, and their dreams. No matter whether they are describing imaginary encounters with animals, humans, the living or the dead, everything has its meaning. Alone in the wilderness, they look like the last people on Earth. Nanook and Sedna's traditional way of life starts changing – slowly, but inevitably. Hunting becomes more and more difficult, the animals around them die from inexplicable deaths and the ice has been melting earlier every year. Chena, who visits them regularly, is their only connection with the outside world and to their daughter Ága. When Sedna's health deteriorates, Nanook decides to fulfil her wish. He embarks on a long journey in order to find Ága. Milko Lazarov's second feature premiered out of competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2018, and was winner of the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Feature Film when it screened in competition at Sarajevo Film Festival 2018.

Mes provinciales

Jean-Paul Civeyrac : 2018
A Paris Education

Filled with expectations, Étienne moves to Paris from Lyon to study film directing at the Sorbonne. He leaves behind his girlfriend Lucie, promising to call her regularly via Skype. On his course he meets Jean-Noël and Mathias, they too have come to the metropolis from smaller cities and share his passion for cinema. Together they discuss the cinematic canon, read texts by Flaubert and Pasolini, and listen to Bach and Mahler. Jean-Noël proves to be an agreeable friend who tries to strengthen Étienne's fragile self-confidence; Mathias, on the other hand, often comes across as stern, aloof and mysterious. Fond of arguing, he has a habit of disappearing for weeks on end without the others knowing where he is. Nobody gets to see his student film, either. Étienne is particularly crestfallen when he discovers by chance that Mathias shares a secret with Annabelle, an idealistic young woman who lives in Étienne's shared flat and with whom he is secretly in love. A tenderly melancholic study of these young people's encounter with art and life, and a declaration of love for classic cinema and the city of Paris. Jean-Paul Civeyrac's feature premiered in the Panorama section at Berlin International Film Festival 2018.

Woman at War

Benedikt Erlingsson : 2018
Kona fer í stríð

Halla is a 50-year-old independent woman. But behind the scenes of a quiet routine, she leads a double life as a passionate environmental activist. Known to others only by her alias – "The Woman of the Mountain" – Halla secretly wages a one-woman-war on the local aluminium industry. As Halla's actions grow bolder, going from petty vandalism to outright industrial sabotage, she succeeds in pausing negotiations between the Icelandic government and the corporation building a new aluminium smelter. But just as she begins planning her biggest and boldest operation yet, she receives an unexpected letter that changes everything. Her application to adopt a child has finally been accepted, and there is a little girl waiting for her in Ukraine. As Halla prepares to abandon her role as saboteur and saviour of the Highlands to fulfil her dream of becoming a mother, she decides to plot one final attack to deal the aluminium industry a crippling blow. Benedikt Erlingsson's feature premiered in competition at the Semaine de la Critique at Festival de Cannes 2018, and screened in the Kinoscope section at Sarajevo Film Festival 2018.

L'après-midi de Clémence

Lénaïg le Moigne : 2018
The Afternoon of Clémence

When Clémence travels out to the country to attend a garden party with her parents, she's excited about meeting the other kids. Upon arriving late, Clémence joins the other children who are already playing away from the adults, but they don't seem to notice her. They even mock her and leave her behind in the woods. And the grown-ups? Too absorbed in their oh-so-important conversations. Clémence's afternoon doesn't turn out to be as much fun as she expected. With charcoal and coloured pencils, the director sensitively traces how it feels to be pushed away by others. Lénaïg le Moigne's short premiered in the Generation Kplus section at Berlin International Film Festival 2018, and featured in the Children's programme at Sarajevo Film Festival 2018.

Glaubenberg

Thomas Imbach : 2018

Lena is an intelligent and very pretty 16-year-old. She lives with her older brother Noah and her parents in an old house in Oerlikon, Northern Zürich. Noah, a likeable young man of 19, has just successfully completed his baccalaureate and is eager to get on with his life but Lena does not want to let him go. When the family sees Noah off at the airport – he is going to İzmir as an archaeological intern – Lena is practically heartbroken. The love Lena feels for Noah is more than sisterly love – and is a love so intense that it is experienced as a form of madness. She tries to cope, but plagued by her dreams, the nights become a constant conflict with forbidden feelings, so much so that she decides to stop sleeping. To distract herself, she encourages Noah's friend Enis. But she is so obsessed with her brother that she cannot curb her feelings. Lena starts daydreaming, living more in a fantasy world than in real life. When she finally brings herself to confess to Noah, he is shocked and repels her. Lena then embarks on a journey into the unknown. Thomas Imbach's feature premiered in competition in the Concorso internazionale section at Locarno Film Festival 2018.

Le vent tourne

Bettina Oberli : 2018
With the Wind

A farm in the Jura mountains, far away from the nearest village. This is where Pauline and Alex's dream of a self-sufficient life in harmony with nature has come true. Their love, ideals and work unite them. Now the couple wishes to become totally independent by producing their own power. The pragmatic and easy-going engineer Samuel visits them to oversee the construction of a wind turbine. Pauline feels immediately attracted to him and suddenly becomes aware of how limited her life has been. Her feelings for Samuel are as intense as a storm, throwing her into confusion about her love life and view of the world. Above all she will realise the need to express her personality without following the path taken by others. Bettina Oberli's feature was winner of the Variety Piazza Grande Award when it premiered at Locarno Film Festival 2018.