Alice Rohrwacher’s lockdown film escapes the claustrophobia of video calls to seek connection through a zoom lens. The faces of her neighbors are captured on tactile 16mm film and accompanied by the director’s gentle narration in this humanist gem that sparkles with kindness under the Italian sun.

Enchanted by a child’s curious gaze, An Urban Allegory is quintessential Alice Rohrwacher. Together with street artist JR, the supernal filmmaker assembles a kaleidoscopically playful vision of art, tracing how it moves through this stage of magical light and alluring shadow we call the world.

Celestial blues are speckled with red and religious icons flicker and fall in Alice Rohrwacher’s first feature. With cinematography by Hélène Louvart, the filmmaker braids the discoveries of girlhood into towering questions of faith to create a coming-of-age tale that is at once lived-in and divine.