120 mins | Luca Guadagnino | Italy | 2009 | M sex scenes

As wife to the heir in a wealthy Milanese family, Tilda Swinton is at the centre of this lush Italian drama.

“Tilda Swinton is ridiculously enjoyable to watch… dressed in colours you want to drink, and exploring her puzzled, porcelain allure in ways that make the screen fairly quiver… It’s a sensational performance, but the excitements of this pulse-quickening, exotic bird of a film… neither begin nor end there.” — Tim Robey, The Telegraph

“An exquisite, all-enveloping feast of sensual pleasures. It’s almost certainly the most elegant piece of cinema you’ll see this year.” – The Times

124 mins | Kleber Mendoça Filho | Brazil | 2012 | M sex scenes, offensive language & drug use

A history of violence and oppression threatens to engulf the residents of an affluent seaside community in Neighboring Sounds, a thrilling debut from filmmaker Kleber Mendonca Filho. A palpable sense of unease hangs over a single city block in the coastal town of Recife, Brazil. Home to prosperous families and the servants who work for them, the area is ruled by an aging patriarch and his sons.

When a private security firm is reluctantly brought in to protect the residents from a recent spate of petty crime, it unleashes the fears, anxieties and resentments of a divided society still haunted by its troubled past.

“The mastery of pacing, theme and stylistic eccentricity throughout… is so assured as to be breathtaking.” – Film Comment

103 mins | Nicolas Champeaux & Gilles Porte | France | 2018

Rare audio recordings alongside animated courtroom sketches bring to life the Rivonia trial in this enthralling account of a pivotal chapter in Mandela and his co-defendants’ fight against apartheid.

“[In] this… absorbing, uplifting documentary… Mandela’s landmark speeches remain intensely stirring… but the film’s winning card is fresh interviews with an impressive range of key figures from around the trial including Winnie, lawyers George Bizos and Joel Joffe, defendants Denis Goldberg, Andrew Mlangeni, Ahmed Kathrada and his former girlfriend Sylvia Neame…

The people interviewed are sharp and witty, carrying their heroism lightly and revealing a strength of character that sustained them through lengthy imprisonment and beyond. All of them devoted their lives to what they believed to be right and seem all the more admirable for acting without the comforting knowledge of knowing that history would be on their side.” — Allan Hunter, Screendaily

112 mins | Ziad Doueri | Lebanon | 2017 | M violence, offensive language & content that may offend

In today's Beirut, a civilian dispute blown out of proportion finds Tony (Adel Karam), a Lebanese Christian, and Yasser (Kamel El Basha), a Palestinian refugee, facing off in court. As the media circus surrounding the case threatens a social explosion in divided Lebanon, Tony and Yasser reconsider their values and beliefs as revelations of trauma complicate their understanding of one another.

“A crackling legal thriller that boils down centuries of Middle Eastern conflict into one reckless insult – and lets the sparks fly.” – Rolling Stone

111 mins | Sean Baker | USA | 2017 | R13 violence, offensive language, drug use & sexual references

The Florida Project tells the story of a precocious six year-old and her ragtag group of friends whose summer break is filled with childhood wonder, possibility and a sense of adventure while the adults around them struggle with hard times.

“A visionary take on the wild ups and dangerous downs of life in America’s underbelly from Tangerine director Sean Baker, featuring an Oscar-nominated turn from Willem Dafoe. “Vibrant and brimming with vitality.” – Empire

104 mins | Kogonada | USA | 2017 | M offensive language & drug references

In this charming debut a young librarian and an out-of-town visitor bond in Columbus, Indiana, via conversations about life, relationships and the city’s exceptional modern architecture.

“Allow writer and director Kogonada to take you on a bizarrely fascinating, visually stunning, and subtly sensual tour of Columbus, Indiana’s modernist architecture. Besides churches by Eero and Eliel Saarinen, libraries by I.M. Pei, and Will Miller’s enviable living room interior by Alexander Girard, the film centers on intersecting stories of familial responsibility.

Elisha Christian’s cinematography and Kogonada’s story reveal the deep relationship between architecture and people that many might miss.”— Rich Smith, The Stranger

94 mins | Sally Potter | UK | 1992 | PG sexual references

Tilda Swinton strides through four centuries of history, switching genders as she goes, in Sally Potter’s gorgeous, playful subversion of British Heritage cinema. With Billy Zane, and Quentin Crisp as Elizabeth I.

“The fine, stylised performances from an idiosyncratic international cast are admirably headed by Tilda Swinton’s magnificent Orlando, who acts as the film’s complicitous eyes and ears… It’s a critical work, in that it comments wryly on such things as representations of English history, sexuality/androgyny and class – but made in the spirit of a love-poem to both Woolf and the England that made us. It’s wonderful.” — Wally Hammond, Time Out

100 mins | Benedikt Erlingsson | Iceland | 2018 | PG

Iceland’s Benedikt Erlingsson (Of Horses and Men) winningly mixes absurdist comedy and tense thriller, with Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir as a fearless eco-warrior juggling environmental action and foster motherhood.

Funny – in the way Halla exploits the invisibility of middle-aged womanhood – suspenseful and as spectacular as any film shot in Iceland, Woman at War is further graced by the wittiest of musical soundtracks, performed by an Icelandic oompah band and Ukrainian vocal trio within the movie, standing by even as Halla aims her crossbow at pylons or scampers across the highlands, pursued by drones.

“Is there anything rarer than an intelligent feel-good film that knows how to tackle urgent global issues with humor as well as a satisfying sense of justice? Look no further than Woman at War, Benedikt Erlingsson’s gloriously Icelandic (for lack of a better adjective), near-perfect follow-up to Of Horses and Men.” — Jay Weissberg, Variety

123 mins | Nadine Labaki | Lebanon | 2018 | M violence, offensive language & drug use

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Nadine Labaki's CAPERNAUM ("Chaos") tells the story of Zain, a Lebanese boy who sues his parents for the "crime" of giving him life. 

“Nadine Labaki’s journey through the slums of Lebanon thrills with compassion and heart.” – Time Out

105 mins | Francis Lee | UK | 2017 | R16 nudity, offensive language, sexual material & content that may disturb

Filmed on the Yorkshire Dales where he grew up, Francis Lee’s debut tells the poignant story of a hard-drinking lad who keeps his emotions in check until a handsome Romanian immigrant comes to work on the family farm.

Johnny Saxby (Josh O'Connor) works long hours in brutal isolation on his family's remote farm in the north of England. He numbs the daily frustration of his lonely existence with nightly binge-drinking at the local pub and casual sex. When a handsome Romanian migrant worker (Alec Secareanu) arrives to take up temporary work on the family farm, Johnny suddenly finds himself having to deal with emotions he has never felt before. An intense relationship forms between the two which could change Johnny's life forever.

“Lee has made an astonishing debut behind the camera. It is a love story of rare power and depth, whose effects are felt not through words the characters say but through the words they don't.” Matthew Lucas, From the Front Row

82 mins | Jafar Panahi | Iran | 2015 | PG, offensive language

Pretending to be a taxi driver negotiating the streets of Tehran, the internationally acclaimed filmmaker makes a fascinating movie about his own role as a forbidden storyteller and life in Iran today.

Winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival 2015.

“A priceless cinematic lesson, proving once again that if you know what you want and how to express it, the whole mystical paraphernalia of filmmaking and its inflated budgets is not really necessary… More than ever before, Panahi’s composite picture of contemporary Iranian reality puts on a satirical shape, but the melancholy smile on the driver’s face – and in this case driver and director are one and the same person – is more eloquent than any piece of dialogue.” — Dan Fainaru, Screendaily