Preview: Cinema Made in Italy 2019, Ciné Lumière, 26 February - 3 March 2019

When I interviewed Cinema Paradiso's Salvatore Cascio a couple of months ago, the actor remarked on the current situation for Italian films worldwide: "In terms of quality cinema, we have a lot of talent, but the problem is selling our films: it often happens that they are not seen as widely as they should be internationally." While there are occasional exceptions to that rule - Alice Rohrwacher's widely praised Happy as Lazzaro springs to mind - it's true that many new Italian films tend to go under-seen and under-celebrated.

As noted in previous years, that state of affairs makes the annual Cinema Made in Italy season a particularly welcome addition to London's cultural calendar. Now in its 9th edition, the six-day festival, organised by Istituto Luce-Cinecittà, with the support of the Italian Cultural Institute in London, and taking place at Institut Francais's Ciné Lumière, gives Londoners the opportunity to catch a range of new productions that would otherwise remain inaccessible. This year's programme of ten films, judiciously selected, as usual, by Film London CEO Adrian Wootton, is typically wide-ranging, encompassing crowd-pleasing comedies, relationship dramas, and politically conscious fables, and supplemented by post-screening discussions with filmmakers and cast members.

This year's opening night film is one that is sure to be widely distributed: Paolo Sorrentino’s Loro reunites the director with longtime collaborator Toni Servillo for an all-over-the-shop Berlusconi satire, with actress Elena Sofia Ricci in attendance for a Q&A after the screening. Classic cinema, meanwhile, is represented by Bernardo Bertolucci's still-vibrant The Conformist, featured as a tribute to the director who died last November.

Two films with a Cannes pedigree - having screened in the 2018 Un Certain Regard and Directors’ Fortnight competitions respectively - are among the most distinctive. Valeria Golino’s Euphoria (Euforia), the actress/filmmaker's second feature after the acclaimed Miele (2013), casts Riccardo Scamarcio and Valerio Mastandrea as two contrasting brothers, Matteo and Ettore. Matteo is a gay big city businessman while Ettore is a teacher who's stayed in their provincial home town and left his wife and child for a younger lover, a relationship which has also foundered. When Ettore is diagnosed with cancer, the control freak Matteo takes it upon himself to hide the seriousness of his brother's prognosis from the family and indeed from Ettore himself, moving him in to his palatial Rome flat, which allows the brothers to get to know each other better.

Combining sharp odd couple comedy and melodramatic fraternal bonding, the central premise of Euphoria is not entirely convincing, but scene by scene the film engages and sometimes surprises. While the drama is told from Matteo's point of view, Golino and her co-writers are fair to both brothers' perspectives. Mastrandrea is a touching presence and Scamarcio, previously seen brooding fetchingly in the likes of Vincenzo Marra's First Light, complements his Loro turn with another lively and charismatic performance. There are bumps along the way, but a lovely ending redeems some of the more forced moments.

Gianni Zanasi's Lucia's Grace (Troppa Grazia), which competed in the Cannes Directors' Fortnight, stars Alba Rohrwacher as the heroine of the title, a single mother who works as a land surveyor and who discovers that an ambitious building project is environmentally unsound. What could be a Dardennes premise takes a transcedent turn with a surprising apparation: that of the Virgin Mary, no less, who lobbies Lucia to build a church on the site. Adhering to a comedic tone for the most part, Zanasi's film is more successful in its presentation of Lucia's real world relationships than the fantastic aspects, but Rohrwacher's astute performamce holds the disparate elements together.

Valerio Mieli’s Remember? (Ricordi?) is an ambitious and philosophically-minded romance that's narratively tricksy yet somewhat lugubrious in its tracing of the love story between Luca Marinelli and Linda Caridi's unnamed protagonists. When they meet, he's a miserabilist hipster and she's a winsome dream girl; the film shows a shift in those positions through the couple's many years of interactions. With a script that tends to allow the characters to state the themes, Remember?'s most...memorable element is the associative editing, used interestingly - if insistently - to show how places can trigger reminiscence.

Two less mannered dramas have volatile, down-on-their-luck singers as their protagonists. Bonifacio Angius's second feature Wherever You Are (Ovunque Proteggemi) casts Alessandro Gazale as a hard-drinking has-been who, incarcerated in a mental ward, comes into contact with a young woman (Francesca Niedda), whom he ultimately assists in helping her and her son (Antonio Angius), bumbling his way towards redemption in the process. By turns abrasive and tender, Angius's compelling road movie ambushes you with emotion at the end. 

A mother/son bond is also central to We'll Be Young and Beautiful (Saremo Giovani e Bellissimi) the debut feature by Letizia Lamartire, which charts the renegotiation of the relationship between Isabella (Barbora Bobulova) - a one hit wonder of the 90s who's still singing her signature song "Tick Tock" at a bar a few times a week - and her son Bruno (Alessandro Piavani) who serves as her guitarist but is harbouring different musical ambitions. Occasionally contrived, and much too heavily Oedipal in its later stages, We'll Be Young and Beautiful benefits from lively musical interludes and vivid performances from Bobulova and Piavani, adding up to probably the best mother/son melodrama since Xavier Dolan's Mommy.

Finally, comedies, sometimes hybridised with unexpected genre elements, are well-represented in this year's selection. Paolo Zucca's absurdist farce The Man Who Bought the Moon mixes conventional culture clash comedy with elements of wild inventiveness, while Paolo Virzi, fresh from directing Donald Sutherland and Helen Mirren in the likeable American road movie The Leisure Seeker, combines satire and noir in Magical Nights (Notti Magiche), which explores the golden age of Italian cinema in Rome through the tale of three aspiring screenwriters (Mauro Lamantia, Irene Vetere and Giovanni Toscano) who turn out to be the main suspects in the murder of a famous producer. 

More modest, but definitely more relatable, is Duccio Chiarini’s The Guest (L’Ospite), a delightful comedy-drama that follows its hero Guido (Daniele Parisi) a taken-for-granted literature professor who's approaching 40, as he finds himself sofa-surfing following a break up with his partner. As such, he's privy to the less-than-ideal domestic arrangements and complicated romantic entanglements of his parents, friends and colleagues, which the film views with a wryly sympathetic eye. Along with a smart script, crisp editing and good performances, the most charming thing about The Guest is that it doesn't take the expected route. The opening scene suggests a ribald sex comedy, but the movie becomes sweeter, sadder and mature in its perspective on romantic and professional compromise. Directing confidently throughout, Chiarini brings his light but wise film together beautifully in a perfect final shot.

Cinema Made in Italy is at Ciné Lumière between 26 February and 3 March. Further information here. 

Theatre Review: Cougar (Orange Tree Theatre)

Charlotte Randle and Mike Noble in Cougar
 (Photo: The Other Richard)

Benefiting from a whip-smart production by Chelsea Walker, Rose Lewenstein's Cougar brings a nervy, sometimes feral intensity to the Orange Tree stage. I only saw one play by Lewenstein so far - her elegant and touching drama about three generations of Jewish women, Now This is Not the End - but that didn't prepare me for Cougar which is an altogether wilder, weirder beast. 

A series of short hotel room-set scenes, presented in jumbled chronology, constitute the piece. All of the scenes involve Leila and John, a couple who hook up during a conference. He's a barman and she's a leading figure in corporate sustainability who jets around the world, promoting the "Green Agenda" to international companies. As their affair develops, Leila takes John on her trips, paying his way, and warning him not to fall in love with her. This arrangement gets tested by various factors, not least the ever-deteriorating condition of the world itself. 

With its hotel rooms setting, and focus on sex and power plays therein, Cougar superficially evokes John Donelley's The Pass. But Lewenstein's more surprising play has grander thematic designs, and ambitions that are hearteningly big. The play touches on a range of fashionable interrelated topics - #MeToo, Trump, climate change - but only occasionally (such as Leila asking John: "Are you consenting?") do those elements feel too calculated. Consumption, at both macro and micro levels, is the governing idea, and feminist sloganeering of the "Burn it all down" variety is avoided for something knottier and ultimately more provocative.

Charlotte Randle and Mike Noble in Cougar

 (Photo: The Other Richard)

The characterisation of Leila is particularly intriguing in this regard. An "impenetrable" compartmentalist, unwilling to say "Me Too" and with a desire to be "bought" by a man (imagine the outcry if David Hare had come up with this!), she comes close to "dysfunctional career woman" cliche. But Charlotte Randle's intelligent, carefully modulated performance - which shifts from sensuality to icy contempt in a hair's breadth - creates a fascinating, credible character. Mike Noble is equally compelling, as he shows John grappling with his place in this dynamic, pointing out the paradoxes in Leila's position as "a climate-change celebrity" and attempting to orientate himself via the Lonely Planet app before the cities that the couple find themselves in begin to blur. 

Indeed, as Rosanna Vize's set gets progressively trashed, Cougar takes on a hallucinatory quality, its "snapshot" structure, repetitions and mirrorings complemented by a subtly unsettling sound design by Alexandra Faye Braithwaite and superb lighting by Jess Bernberg (who did such an exquisite job on Jonathan Humphrey's 2017 production of The Death of Ivan Ilyich). Bernberg's work, in particular, contributes powerfully to the story-telling here, as it skillfully delineates temporal and location shifts as well as providing a few moments of startling exposure. Walker keeps the rhythm tight, sharp and coiled throughout, with scenes snapping off and resuming in unexpected places.

Overall, Cougar memorably conveys the hothouse atmosphere of a fraught affair while gesturing at the wider resonances beyond its claustrophobic parameters. This take on relationship upheaval and pending apocalypse will probably polarise people, but Walker's haunting production deserves to be a big success.  

Cougar is at the Orange Tree until 2 March. Further information here. 

Film Review: If Beale Street Could Talk (dir. Jenkins, 2018)

Adapting James Baldwin's 1974 novel, Barry Jenkins follows up the Oscar-winning Moonlight (2016) with another artful - but more fraudulent feeling - narrative of African American male victimhood. Here the setting is 1970s Harlem, where a young couple, Tish and Fonny, are starting to make a life for themselves. Childhood friends, the pair's bond has turned to romantic love, and Tish is expecting their child. But any potential for happiness is interrupted when Fonny is falsely accused of rape and incarcerated pending sentencing. 

An avowed admirer of Claire Denis, Jenkins demonstrates her influence in the attention that he pays to ambience in If Beale Street Could Talk. With Moonlight cinematographer James Laxton again at the helm, the film boasts striking images that, at their best, create a hypnotic quality with the addition of Nicholas Britell's jazz score. 

Unfortunately, also like Denis, Jenkins sometimes has problems dramatising his material and the fragmentary, nonlinear structure inhibits involvement here. Many of the interactions simply fail to convince. A crowd-pleasing argument between  the protagonists' parents - in which his holy roller mother (Aunjanue L. Ellis) gets what's coming to her - is offensive, poorly acted, and painfully overpitched, while a late detour to Puerto Rico, where Tish's mother (Regina King) goes to track down Fonny's accuser, is particularly awkward. The occasional use of photographs to link Fonny's incarceration to the wider historical context of African American male suffering render the film a calculated, heavy-handed "Black Lives Matter" treatise.  

Much of Baldwin's florid language (including Tish's narration) seems to have been preserved wholesale from the book. But, while arguably pungent on the page, spoken as dialogue it has an artificial air that grates more than it entrances, and neither KiKi Layne, as Tish, nor Stephan James, as Fonny, manage to overcome the posed fakery of the whole conception. There are scattered elements that engage in Jenkins' film, and a long scene between Fonny and his friend, Daniel (excellent Brian Tyree Henry, who gives the movie's finest performance), in which the pair talk about their experiences and limited options, proves a highlight. But coming after the carefully-crafted Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk must count as a considerable disappointment.

If Beale Street Could Talk is out in the UK on 8 February. 

Theatre Review: Fever (Pomysłowe Mebelki z Gąbki) (Teatr Studyjny, Łódź)

Premiered in November, and already honoured at FIESAD, Morocco's International Drama Schools Festival (where it collected two prizes), Mariusz Grzegorzek's Fever (more opaque Polish title: Pomysłowe Mebelki z Gąbki) now returns to its "home town" to confound, challenge, delight and excite audiences anew. This production is the Diploma Show of the Acting Students at Łódź Film School, and, as such, serves as something of a showcase for the emerging talents of one of Poland's most prestigious and storied institutions. Since the 2018 Diploma Film from the school, Jagoda Szelc's Monument, was one of the best things that I saw on screen last year, and Grzegorzek's production of Jennifer Haley's The Nether was one of the best that I saw on stage, Fever seemed the ideal occasion to make my first visit to Teatr Studyjny, particularly as the performance was subtitled in English (which the theatre plans to make a more regular feature of its productions). 

And so it proved. By turns playful and political, serious and silly, raucous and reflective, the 3 hour Fever roars across the stage with dynamic youthful energy from its opening moments. Dance, music, poetry, trash TV and worrying Web 2.0 culture are among the grab bag of modes and cultural references that the show draws from. The kaleidoscopic collage structure of the piece both imitates and subverts the restlessness of Internet surfing or TV channel hopping by mobilising those tendencies for avant garde theatrical purposes. The audience is seduced and challenged by being whisked briskly from one contrasting scenario to the next then surprised with longer sequences that require sustained and immersive engagement.

Inevitably some of the scenes and interludes are more successful than others. But the mixing of wildly heterogenous material generates its own cumulative excitement. Fluidity is the name of the game here, with the show leaping from punk (an exhilarating shared scream through Buzzcocks' "Ever Fallen in Love") to classical (David Lang's "The Little Match Girl Passion") to a hilariously filthy take on Disco Polo ("Ass Dance"). 

The shifts from wicked parody to heart-wrenching sincerity test the vocal and physical prowess of the multi-tasking cast of 13 - Izabella Dudziak, Mateusz Grodecki, Faustyna Kazimierska, Karol Nowiński, Piotr Pacek, Anna Paliga, Zuzanna Puławska, Robert Ratuszny, Aleksandra Skraba, Michał Surosz, Ksenia Tchórzko, Filip Warot and Elżbieta Zajko - who work together wonderfully well. At times - lined up and striding towards us - they suggest a mob: insolent and looking for trouble. At others - when forming a supportive circle or gently holding on to Tchórzko's hair - they're an empathetic, caring coterie. We're clearly seeing the emergence of some Polish stage and screen stars of the future here. 

The amount of time given over to the TV reality show parody "Nabrzmiałe Problemy" ("Swollen Problems") - which documents a Łódź teen love triangle - may seem excessive, but the constant switching up of the performers keeps it fresh and funny. Check out, for instance, the brilliantly contrasting ways in which the actors playing the TV announcer approach that role, offering sinister relish (Filip Warot), cool dismissiveness (Robert Ratuszny), sincere interest (Mateusz Grodecki) and self-satisfied camp pose-striking (magnetic Piotr Pacek). Meanwhile, Aleksandra Skraba, Zuzanna Puławska, Izabella Dudziak and Elżbieta Zajko (the latter two also feature in Grzegorzek's Czarownice z Salem) all distinguish themselves with their memorable takes on the show's highly-strung heroine, Sandra. (And be warned: the hilariously inane theme tune of "Swollen Problems" is a definite earworm.) 

Complementing such sharing of roles, notions of family relationships and community form a thematic throughline, as the show slyly addresses the question posed by Bradley Cooper in A Star is Born's "Shallow" (and quoted early on here): "Tell me something, girl, are you happy in this modern world?" The brashness of the TV show parody is contrasted with sober sections dedicated to Hutsul customs in which attention to community rituals gives the performance a charged collective and historical sense. Some of the most potent moments of the night draw deeply from Polish literary tradition and history, too: witness the rousing choral rendition of the Gall Anonim/Czesław Niemen "Pieśń wojów" ("Warrior Song") or the grotesque and absurdist take on Władysław Bełza's poem "Kłamstwo brudzi" ("Lies Stain"). We're then brought bang up-to-date again with a daring sequence that directly confronts xenophobia and recent political woes. 

Grzegorzek's visionary directorial signatures are, of course, much in evidence, including projections that range from trippy psychedelia to simple black-and-white beauty (with a twist), while the sensational costume designs of Tomasz Armada (alum of Łódź Academy of Fine Arts and co-founder of the Limanka Fashion House) also ensure that the production is a visual feast as well as an aural one. Fine vocal coaching from Izabela Połońska and highly creative choreography from Mateusz Rzeźniczak further contribute to the dynamism of the event. 

The most breathtaking sequence is saved for last - an expressionist rendering of the bloody, tragic folk ballad "Four Miles From Warsaw," accomplished with bowls of water, towels, a sheet, brilliant accordian-playing from Leszek Kołodziejski - and spine-tingling vocal and physical commitment from the whole cast. It's hard to imagine seeing a more transfixing and imaginative piece of staging this year. Yet that's not everything, after all. Following the intensity of that sequence, a joyful, cleansing coda leaves the audience on a high as it takes us firmly into the liberating territory of Dionysus - by way of Donna Summer. I felt love. 

Fever is performed at Teatr Studyjny on 20th, 26th and 27th January. Further information here. 

Photo credit: Filip Szkopiński. 

Review of 2018: Theatre - 10 Favourite Productions

With knee jerk complaints about casting decisions taking up a large part of the critical "conversation"; established White critics making racist pronouncements or else bending over backwards to demonstrate their commitment to "diversity";  and what Armond White has called "the identity politics fashion that dominates contemporary culture" generally at the forefront, now is surely an odd time to be involved in arts journalism. Responses may seem calculated, artistic standards may be getting shorter shrift than they should be, but for me these 10 productions all offered a powerful reminder that, in such divisive times, theatre can still be one of the best resources we have for bringing us together.

The Nether (Otchłań), Jaracz Theatre

Mariusz Grzegorzek's hallucinatory take on Jennifer Haley's The Nether mixed suspiciously glittering, velvety Victorian and spare, clinical ambience to captivating effect. With projections blossoming and blooming over the bodies of the actors, the play's exploration of the seductions of, and the perversions enabled by, the Internet was powerfully illuminated. Amidst a brilliant cast, Paulina Walendziak stood out for her amazing performance as Iris, the "shining little girl." Full review here.

The Meeting, Chichester Festival Theatre 

Absent from UK stages for far too long, it was great to reacquaint with the wise and humane voice of Charlotte Jones this year. The OT's revival of Humble Boy was a delight, but better still was Jones's new play, about conflicts in a Quaker community,  which moved and involved all who were lucky enough to see it. Here's hoping for a future Meeting down the road. Full review here.

Utility, Orange Tree

Quiet, unassuming American plays have become "a thing" in recent years, countering (a bit) the brashness of the culture at large. One of the best to make it to British shores, Emily Schwend's Utility, slipped through the net somewhat, but Caitlin McLeod's lumimous production proved totally absorbing, immersing us in the kitchen of a Texas household and the everyday dilemmas of a young mother (great Robyn Addison)  preparing for her daughter's birthday party. Full review here.

Caroline, or Change , Hampstead Theatre/Playhouse

Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori's masterpiece is a work that moves me so deeply and instinctively that I find it almost impossible to write about. Suffice to say (for now, anyway) that it was wonderful to revisit it in Michael Longhurst's fluid production which reminded us that when it comes to subjects for radical musical theatre, a maid at work in a basement, not Founding Fathers' history, is really where it's at.  

Fun Home, Young Vic

Less lucky than Caroline in not getting the West End transfer it deserved (for now, anyway), Sam Gold's production of Tesori's other great musical was a treat to see at the Young Vic.

Ich Czworo, Jaracz Theatre

When Gabriela meets Gabriela... Not content with giving a couple of the year's best film performances (in Fugue and 7 Emotions) Gabriela Muskala was also wickedly good (and hilarious) as the adulterous matriarch in Ich Czworo (Four of Us). Looking like a festive picture postcard, and with fabulous music adding to the joy, Malgorzata Bogajewska's production sexed up Gabriela Zapolska's 1907 play with outrageous aplomb. 

Richard II, Almeida

Distilling the play to its essence, Joe Hill-Gibbins delivered a biting production that freshly illuminated the drama with brilliant Simon Russell Beale and Leo Bill complemented by a multitasking ensemble. 

Operetka, Jaracz Theatre

A cast of 30 delivered a spiky, brilliantly choreographed production of Witold Gombrowicz's surreal satirical operetta.

Nine Night, NT/Trafalgar Studios

Natasha Gordon's funny and touching family portrait, with a magnificent Cecilia Noble, deservedly made its way to the West End. 

Hadestown, NT

I've loved Anais Mitchell's Hadestown album since first hearing it eight years or so ago. Rachel Chavkin gave the material the production it deserved in this great staging. "ALL ABOARD!"


Bonus: The Light Princess in Concert (Cadogan Hall), Three Sisters, Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents (Jaracz Theatre), Humble Boy (Orange Tree), Curtains (Rose).

Still to see: Summer and Smoke (Almeida/Duke of York's)

Disappointed: Othello (Globe)

Review of 2018: Cinema - 20 Favourite Films

Fuga (Fugue) (dir. Agnieszka Smoczyńska) 

Always startlingly different, Gabriela Muskała gave several of the most memorable performances that I had the pleasure to see this year, whether as the eager beaver student in Marek Koterski's 7 Emotions (7  Uczuć), or on stage as the adulterous matriarch in Małgorzata Bogajewska's outrageous production of Ich Czworo at Łódź's Jaracz Theatre. Best of all, though, was Muskała's quicksilver turn as Kinga/Alicja in Agnieszka Smoczyńska's brooding, moody Fuga (Fugue). Here, working from her own script, Muskała plays a wife and mother returning to the family fold after two mysterious years of absence, unable to remember anything about her past identity.  Well supported by strong work from Łukasz Simlat and Iwo Rajski as her spouse and son, Muskała's performance combines the enigmatic with the brazenly physical. Fuga doesn't offer the obvious dazzle of Smoczyńska one-of-a-kind mermaid musical horror extravaganza debut Corki Dancingu (2015), even as it shares that film's bold body consciousness and some hallucinatory imagery. But ultimately the subversiveness of the new film runs deeper, into the most private realms of identity and family experience, where Smoczyńska and Muskała dare to venture and lead the audience on an unsettling and unforgettable ride. 

Wildlife (dir. Paul Dano)

Lean on Pete (dir. Andrew Haigh)

A boy within a family and a boy without one. Sensitivity is so rare in the bludgeoning American cinema of the moment, that these two films (albeit one directed by a Brit) are truly to be treasured, both delicately leading their viewers to understated yet deeply moving conclusions. Adapting Willy Vlautin's 2010 novel, the excellent Andrew Haigh ventured into new territory with an intimate odyssey of a teen (soulful Charlie Plummer) and his horse travelling West in search of a distant relative. Meanwhile, Paul Dano made Richard Ford's novel into a perfectly pitched family portrait that boasted great performances from Carey Mulligan, Jake Gyllenhaal, and, in particular, Ed Oxenbould as the kid realising the extent to which one's parents, though deeply loved, can still be strangers.  

Peterloo (dir. Mike Leigh)

What do contemporary audiences want from a historical drama, these days? Pointless power-playing in palaces, if the rapturous response to Yorgos Lanthimos's latest is to be believed. With The Favourite, the director brings his smug comedy-of-cruelty shtick to English costume drama with wincingly arch results (think Peter Greenaway meets Blackadder); the film ascribes the lowest motives to everyone presented and then plays the very fashionable card of asking us to feel sorry for royalty. The fakery of The Favourite makes the sincerity, respect and humanism of Mike Leigh's Peterloo feel even more valuable (and check out Leigh himself discreetly dissing Lanthimos's film here). In this long-cherished project, Leigh makes the dramatisation of one of the most iniquitous events in domestic British history (the attack on a large group of peaceful protesters at St. Peter's Field in Manchester in 1819) into a vast, immersive panorama of the society of the time, one in which - rightly - no one character dominates. Complaints that the film is nothing but a series of boring speeches are nonsense. Rhetoric - its limitations and possibilities, the way it might bring people into a cause or lock them out - is one of the film's subjects, and Leigh's scrupulous attention to creating believable period dialogue makes Peterloo a film that's as rich linguistically as it is visually. Lest we forget that working men and women have died in the pursuit of rights that we may now take too much for granted, this great (and mostly underappreciated) film offers a sobering, potent reminder.

Roma (dir. Alfonso Cuarón) 

The Chambermaid (La Camarista) (dir. Lila Avilés)

The day-to-day experiences of two Mexican maids - one to a well-off clan undergoing its own domestic strife, the other an employee in a swish hotel in the capital - were the subject of two of the year's best pictures, both of which give respectful, considered attention to the kind of work so seldom seen on screen. Alfonso Cuarón's absorbing, if slightly showy and over-scaled, Roma has been widely  praised, but Lila Avilés' The Chambermaid - humbler, more distilled and ultimately less sentimental - is equally satisfying.

Tully (dir. Jason Reitman)

A brave soul might even put Roma and The Chambermaid in a triple-bill with Jason Reitman's Tully, in which the relationship between a harassed mother and the capable "night nanny" employed to help her out proves mutually beneficial. Since I never saw a Reitman film that I liked so far, Tully was one of the most pleasurable surprises of the year for me: brisk in its storytelling, yet weirdly, beautifully, dreamy in texture. Diablo Cody's (mostly) smart script incorporates sly echoes of Albee's Three Tall Women and Ozon's Swimming Pool into its take on the division between motherhood and selfhood, and the film boasts a fantastic turn from Charlize Theron as the not-so-yummy mummy. 

Djon África (dir. João Miller Guerra & Filipa Reis)

With Djon África, João Miller Guerra and Filipa Reis create the most joyous, open and relaxed of Daddy-quest films, following the amiable, ambling protagonist (Miguel Moreira) as he leaves his home in Portugal to seek out his father in Cape Verde. Loose, digressive and fluid in its structure, and completely unpretentious in content, the film carries the viewer along on its buoyant lightness of spirit. 

Apostasy (dir. Daniel Kokotajlo)

British films that take the subject of religion seriously are a rarity indeed. Daniel Kokotajlo manages it without fuss or fakery in this spare, quietly intense, autobiographically-inspired portrait of a faith versus family conflict in a Jehovah's Witness household in Manchester, in which a daughter starts to question the tenets of the religion that her mother and sister hold dear. As the matriarch, a superb Siobhan Finnernan lets some subterranean slivers of uncertainty and confusion pierce her character's unyielding, implacable facade. 

Nancy (dir. Christina Choe)

Andrea Riseborough is compelling as the Internet-dependent girl given to fabricating stories and personae yet gradually awakening to her own potential as she undertakes what may be another deception or delusion: claiming to be the long-lost daughter of a couple whose child went missing years before. Admirably, Christina Choe's film doesn't go where you might imagine, and is all the more interesting for that. It also boasts wonderful supporting turns from Steve Buscemi and, in particular, J. Smith-Cameron, as the couple whose life Nancy interrupts. 

Journey to a Mother's Room (dir. Celia Rico Clavellino)

Set mostly within the apartment shared by the widowed Estrella (Lola Dueñas) and her daughter Leonor (Anna Castillo), Celia Clavellino Rico’s film is an intimate exploration of a mother/daughter bond that shows bracing compassion to both parties. The film takes its place alongside Benito Zambrano’s Solas (1999) and Almodóvar’s Volver (2006) (in which Dueñas memorably co-starred) as an insightful Spanish mother/daughter portrait, albeit one that entirely avoids the recourse to melodrama of those predecessors. Rather, Rico's quiet film is as delicate in tone as the Vashti Bunyan song featured on its soundtrack. 

Joy (dir.  Sudabeh  Mortezai)

Support the Girls (dir. Andrew Bujalski)

Several memorable films this year explored the experiences of women as collaborators, colleagues or co-workers. Steve McQueen's Widows was probably the most high-profile. Far better, though, were Joy, Sudabeh Mortezai's discreet and powerful drama about a group of sex-trafficked Nigerian women, and Andrew Bujalski's friendly, funny, Demme-ish Support the Girls with Regina Hall gamely making it through the day as manageress of a "brews, boobs and big screens" establishment. 

Faces Places (dir. Agnès Varda and JR)

Because Varda and JR are the best travelling companions you could wish for. 

Sorry Angel (dir. Christophe Honoré)

Sauvage (dir. Camille Vidal-Naquet)

"You don't feel damned between the sunrise and sunset..." The unmistakeable sound of Cocteau Twins' "I wear your ring", scoring an indelible post-coital moment captured in striking overhead shot, is one of the many rapturous episodes in Christophe Honoré's Sorry Angel, which spins a novelistic, digressive account of  a relationship initiated during a screening of The Piano (!), shot through with  Honoré's trademark insight and intelligence. (Read Popsublime's brilliant coverage of the film here.)  Pair Sorry Angel with Sauvage, Camille Vidal-Naquet's equal parts brutal and beautiful portrait of a sex worker's travails, to prove, once again, that when it comes to putting the complexities of love and sex on screen in ways that are frank, natural and honest, French filmmakers are still doing it best. Between sunrise and sunset, there's deep pain in both of these films, but bracing tenderness, too. 

Becoming Astrid (Unga Astrid) (dir. Pernille Fischer Christensen)

Pernille Fischer Christensen makes Becoming Astrid an absorbing account of the early life of the children's author Astrid Lindgren, one which doesn't fall into the typical biopic trap of elevating the heroine above all the other characters. Still, in the main role, Alba August is radiant; at times suggesting Carey Mulligan or Maggie Gyllenhaal, but with a delicacy and fortitude that's all her own, she keeps us attuned to the character's feelings all the time. The winner of this year's Transatlantyk Festival Audience Award, Christensen's lovely film deserves to be seen much more widely than it has been. 

Monument (dir. Jagoda Szelc)

In which Jagoda Szelc suggests that hell is the hospitality industry, as she presents a group of young people undertaking an internship at an isolated hotel, overseen by an extremely exacting Manager (played by an exquisitely-styled Dorota Łukasiewicz-Kwietniewska as a lesbian icon in-the-making). Starting in naturalistic mode, as it shows the group adjusting to their work and forming cliques and friendships, the film's fascination lies in the way it seduces the viewer into strangeness. Making good on the great promise of Szelc's debut feature, Tower. A Bright Day (2017), the confidence of the framing and editing, the placement of the actors, the hypnotic dissolves and immersive sound design, and the general attention to atmosphere, would distinguish a veteran filmmaker. 

Candelaria (dir. Jhonny Hendrix)

The Heiresses (Las Herederas) (dir. Marcelo Martinessi)

Two terrific Latin American films that explore long-term relationships with candour, wit and insight. Jhonny Hendrix's Candelaria transcends the potential tackiness of its subject matter - an elderly husband and wife accidentally turning amateur pornographers - to make a delightful portrait of a couple that's also a portrait of Cuba itself. (See it before there's a Vanessa Redgrave/James Earl Jones remake!) And I loved everything about Marcelo Martinessi's The Heiresses, in which Ana Brun is glorious as a timid woman belatedly blossoming in her partner's absence. 

Bonus: Hannah, Leave No Trace, Black Panther, Les Distancies, They Shall Not Grow Old, Crystal Swan, The Wild Pear Tree, Isle of Dogs, Who Will Write Our History, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, McQueen, My Friend the Polish Girl, Nothing Like a Dame, Winter Flies, Ułaskawienie, Custody, Suleiman Mountain, Atak Paniki, Love Express. The Disappearance of Walerian Borowczyk, Scary Mother, BlacKkKlansman (first half).

Disappointed: BlacKkKlansman (second half), Cold War, If Beale Street Could Talk, Hereditary, Suspiria. 

Just no: Romans, The Endless, Happy New Year, Colin Burstead, The Favourite, A Quiet Place, Behold My Heart.

Not Seen Yet: Happy As Lazzaro, Shoplifters, The House That Jack Built. 

Choices from: 2017, 2016, 2015