Lucía Aleñar Iglesias’ promising debut finds a unique angle on coming-of-age and haunted house tropes — marking her as a director to watch.
Forastera. Teenage Grief Under the Mallorcan Sun.
Jared Abbott
Editor-at-large Jared loves movies and lives with Kiki in Berlin.
Between Dreams and Hope. Between Risk and Compromise.
Farnoosh Samadi’s blistering thriller Between Dreams and Hope captures the compromises of a young trans man navigating the difficulties of modern-day Iran.
En el camino Updates the Queer Road Trip Playbook
David Pablos’ riveting Mexican film En El Camino, winner of the Queer Lion, presents a fresh take on the queer road trip movie.
Empty Incel Nonsense
Evi Kalogiropoulou’s deeply disappointing Gorgonà leans so heavily into fascist aesthetics it starts to resemble the very thing it criticises.
Otec Brutally Shows How the Mind Can Rewrite Reality
A father makes a devastating mistake in Tereza Nvotová’s Otec, bleak and hellish depiction of every parent’s worst nightmare.
THAT GIRL
A transgender Macedonian woman radically transforms the lives of a group of tomboys in Kukla’s assured and heartfelt Fantasy — live from Locarno!
Mosquitoes Is Big, Bold and More Than a Little Messy
Not everything in Mosquitoes lands, but its big, and bold swings show off the ambition of Nicole and Valentina Bertani’s off-kilter coming-of-age vision.
Balearic Can’t Find The Beat
Ion De Sosa’s dreamy follow-up to horror hit Mamántula is a disappointment, despite all those lovely 16mm images.
Join the Follicule!
Éric K. Boulianne’s debut comedy drama Follies explores the joys — and pitfalls — of opening up a marriage, to often hilarious results.
In The Birthday Party, The Rich Eat Themselves
Miguel Ángel Jiménez’s Piazza Grande film The Birthday Party lets Willem Dafoe chew the scenery, but its not one of his essential performances.