Women Hell Song is an audacious “pink” period drama about a tattooed female criminal on the run for murdering Yakuza. Shot in monochrome—with shimmering color inserts for the sex scenes, the film powerfully juxtaposes tradition with modernity, violence with religion, and softcore with folklore.

Winner of the Crystal Bear at Berlinale, this narrative feature debut is an engrossing coming-of-age story, sensitively told by its brilliant cast. Set near a First Nation community in Quebec, A Colony tackles subjects such as teenagehood, family, and racism with an assured and refreshing hand.

The first documentary ever to win the Golden Lion at Venice, Gianfranco Rosi’s Sacro GRA is a charmingly humanist and roving look at contemporary Rome, filmed over two years from a minivan. The film sidesteps the city’s iconic landmarks to explore the peripatetic lives of some of its inhabitants.

Turkish auteur Reha Erdem turns the limitations of lockdown into an exuberant musical comedy with humanistic overtones. Ingeniously intersecting the lives of nine people from different backgrounds, Hey There! is a stunning meditation on feelings of guilt and the unbearable lightness of confessing.

Swiss filmmaker Fabrice Aragno may be best known for his work as cinematographer to Jean-Luc Godard, but he’s been quietly amassing a substantial body of short films of his own. This seasonally structured wonder takes to the water for an ominous, evocatively scored cruise between dangerous shores.

Warm and mysterious, like each of Nicolás Pereda’s films, Together is an intimate and exquisitely shot drama about a struggling couple. Perfectly tinged with humor while retaining a quiet power, this sophomore feature already demonstrates the control of a master filmmaker.

Kan Mukai’s Blue Film Woman plays out like a psychedelic fever dream. Against the backdrop of an unanticipated financial crash, this oneiric-erotic revenge thriller tells a sleazy story of sex, murder, and stockbrokers to the twang of a ’60s sitar. Get ready for a colorful and disturbing trip.

Weaving a colorful thread between the unfinished footage of experimental trailblazers Maya Deren and Barbara Hammer, artist Deborah Stratman looks at how three generations of women artists have approached subjects outside of their cultures: generously and without compromising reality.

Turning to an unfinished film project by the pioneering queer experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer, Lynne Sachs animates the material into a loving dialogue with the director. A shimmering, kaleidoscopic diary film that gently reflects on aging, solitude and the sheer beauty of the world around us.

A tour through the arrondissements of Paris—or a mid-60s Nouvelle Vague prototype for Paris je t’aime—this omnibus anthology is a tribute from six filmmakers who would spend much of their careers mapping out the city so memorably. Featuring shorts from Jean Rouch, Jean-Luc Godard, and Éric Rohmer.

Despite being banned in its country of origin, Rafiki dazzled audiences in Cannes and became the first Kenyan film to premiere at the festival. Vibrant and sizzling with the excitement of first love, this lesbian teen romance takes a stand against homophobic laws while remaining utterly joyful.

Weaving dreams, perception, and the imaginary into a panoply of resourcefully imaginative filmmaking, Tobias Nölle’s award-winning debut is a true delight. It is a tale of one man’s loneliness that is uniquely enlightening and incisive in its incursion into the labyrinth of the human mind.

Best known for his subversive drama Secret Things, Jean-Claude Brisseau is one of French cinema’s best-kept secrets. This bleak tale recalls the films of Michael Haneke in style while standing out as an unsettling character study. Featuring a brooding performance by French actor Bruno Cremer!

Produced by Keiko Sato, a trailblazer of the pinku eiga sexploitation genre, this hallucinatory gem takes place in the existential wastelands of 1960s Tokyo. A thrilling mix of modernist visuals, explicit erotica, and Yakuza violence that reveals just how boundary-pushing pink films could be.

The first feature film role for Vanessa Paradis also marks the popular apex of director Jean-Claude Brisseau, whose sensual, magical-surrealist interpretation of cinematic realism is both his hallmark but also may be the reason for his under-known reputation outside of France. A shimmering rarity.

A former assistant director to Italian auteur Nanni Moretti, Daniele Luchetti followed up his moving My Brother Is an Only Child with this turbulent portrait of Roman suburban life. Featuring a ravishing performance from actor Elio Germano, Our Life is an inspired piece of social realist cinema.

This intimate documentary indirectly traces Colombia’s violent history via the story of Ciro Galindo, a survivor of the armed conflict and a friend of director Miguel Salazar. By revisiting the past through interviews and archive footage, Ciro & Me hopes for a future made of peace and dignity.

Nicolas Philibert (To Be and To Have) delves into the backstage of the offices and recording studios of the French national radio, bringing to light its manifold activities and people. A fascinating documentary observing the ordinary interactions and remarkable occurrences of a major institution.

Arnaud des Pallières’s memorable docufiction essay-film attempts to pass on to future generations the horrific history of France’s participation in the Holocaust through three very different tales. The traces of this past today are singularly exposed in an ingenious cinematic reflection.

We’re pleased to present this newly remastered, incantatory essay film, which slices straight to the beating heart of the teen movie. Bewitchingly narrated by The Craft’s Fairuza Balk, this ode to American coming-of-age films has an original soundtrack by Summer Camp, the duo behind Romantic Comedy.

“We are temporary,” repeats a mysterious voice as the camera glides across computer-generated urban detritus. This enthralling survey on technology and impermanence immerses us in its foreboding scenery as if we were alone inside of a video game. An extreme wide-screen jump into the digital void.

Impressive in the sheer extent of its undertaking, this is a film with quite a feat: sorting through a decade of home movies (an eye-watering 2,000ft of Super 8mm film) to construct a portrait of the titular Larisa. From director Andrés Pardo Piccone, an intriguing effort & reflection on authorship.

Philosophically reflecting on space as a container for childhood memories, Sonchidi is an enigmatic sci-film that riffs on time, nature, architecture, and sound. An unusual exploration of the idea of a time machine, Amit Dutta’s work looks at art’s role in preserving our dreams and our fears.

Colombian cinema had a strong festival presence in the last decade, way before The Embrace of The Serpent’s success. This little gem is a good example—a disarmingly human look at the armed conflict through the candid eyes of a kid, with echoes of Malle’s Au Revoir Les Enfants and Iranian neorealism.

From Pirosmani’s compatriot Giorgi Shengelaya comes this sensitive and sympathetic portrait of the Primitivist painter, who devoted his life’s work to illustrating often under-represented everyday lives. An astute film of meaningfully-muted colors and exquisite cinematography.

A personal, intimate documentary from Susan Ray, Don’t Expect Too Much tells the inside story on one of Hollywood’s greatest and most iconic directors: the inimitable auteur Nicholas Ray. Full of juicy revelations, it also features a roster of talking heads including Jim Jarmusch and Victor Erice!

From directors Marco Dutra (Good Manners) and Caetano Gotardo (Your Bones and Your Eyes) comes a majestic melodrama that confronts, head on, Brazil’s unsettled legacy of slavery. The ghosts of colonialism swirl through this grand period piece, asking pertinent and probing questions.

Radu Jude is the prolific director of works that dabble in documentary, fiction, or an intrepid hybrid of the two. The latter is the case here: state surveillance in Ceausescu’s Romania is explored through the staging of a play based on real-life events alongside archive propaganda TV footage.

In Georgis Grigorakis’ contemporary neo-western Digger, the muddy woodlands of Northern Greece make for quietly unnerving territory. Family tensions are layered within wider power structures and environmental concerns in this subdued but potent tale of resistance, produced by Athina Rachel Tsangari.

Matthew Rankin’s ingenious debut feature is a hilarious and visually stunning reimagining of a Canadian Prime Minister’s rise to power. Not your ordinary history lesson, the film takes inspiration from various film movements—including German Expressionism—to form a wacky, lavishly creative treat.