The Voice of Hind Rajab is a docudrama by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania (Four Daughters), which recreates the events of January 29, 2024, in the Gaza Strip, when little Hind Rajab and her family were killed during an attack by Israeli occupation forces. Using professional actors but incorporating the actual recordings of Hind’s phone call asking for help from the Palestinian Red Crescent, the film recreates the harrowing hours in which Palestinian volunteers try to navigate the bureaucracy of humanitarian aid organizations to send help and rescue her. Ben Hania manages to avoid sensationalizing the situation, offering reflections not only on the urgency of what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people but also on the inefficiency of international organizations, the helplessness of volunteers, and the passivity of the international community in addressing the crisis.
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You is a sharp comedy about motherhood, starring Rose Byrne in one of the best performances of her career (for which she won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival). The story follows an overwhelmed mother: a sick daughter, a husband absent for work, lack of sleep, complicated therapy patients, her own hostile therapist, and a hole that suddenly opens up in the ceiling of her apartment. It’s a macabrely funny film that finds irony in the absurd, the anguish, and the overwhelming nature of situations, with a nightmarish surrealism similar to David Lynch's Eraserhead, and a formidable Byrne carrying the emotional weight of the movie.
Directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho, The Secret Agent is a political thriller about memory, inheritance, and Brazil. Starring Wagner Moura, the film gradually builds suspense as it follows a man on the run through landscapes marked by violence and oblivion. The script dives deep into the emotional weight of a father’s journey while evoking the ghosts of a wounded nation. A powerful piece that echoes Pictures of Ghosts and reaffirms cinema as a space of resistance and remembrance.
The Ugly Stepsister is a brilliant body horror comedy that takes a macabrely fun twist on the classic Cinderella tale from the perspective of one of the stepsisters. Elvira (Lea Myren), an unattractive young woman, dreams of marrying the prince of the kingdom, but her life takes a turn when her mother marries a widower (who has a beautiful daughter). He dies on the wedding night, and they discover he actually had no money. Facing financial difficulties, the mother decides she will do whatever it takes to marry Elvira off to the prince, but first, she must subject her to increasingly brutal and painful treatments and training in the name of beauty. Very much in the vein of The Substance, this film reflects on the misogyny underlying beauty standards, and the extremes to which many people are willing to go to achieve them, here represented in literal violence with shocking imagery. Read more in the full review of The Ugly Stepsister.
Check out our first impressions of Sirat, the film nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes 2025.