Motel Destino (2024)

Direction: Karim Ainouz
Country: Brazil 

After experiencing Hollywood last year with the period drama Firebrand, filmmaker Karim Ainouz (Madame Satã, 2002; Invisible Life, 2019) returns to Brazil to helm Motel Destino, a mundane and sexually-charged neo-noir thriller that plays like a haunting phantasmagoria. While the script itself lacks depth, the film benefits from its sensory overload, visual experimentation, and a Coen Brothers-inspired score that evokes sinister western landscapes. 

Living in Ceará, Heraldo (Iago Xavier) plans to move to São Paulo but must first complete one last job for drug kingpin and local artist Bambina (Fabíola Líper). When things spiral out of control, he takes refuge in a seedy sex motel, aided by its owners: the restless Dayana (Nataly Rocha) and her volatile, voyeuristic husband, Elias (Fábio Assunção). 

There’s no pretentiousness or ego in the trio’s performances, and enough tension sustains interest until the film’s ultimately disappointing ending. Motel Destino is a vicious piece of work from a director unafraid to expose the primal, darker instincts of his characters. Unfortunately, this stylized erotic thriller is undermined by clumsy dialogue and a hastily executed conclusion. It offers a shallow cinematic experience that may not leave you breathless, but its darkness lingers like cement, and the tension between its sleazy content and neon-lit aesthetics is precisely where its power resides.

When Fall is Coming (2025)

Direction: François Ozon
Country: France 

With the eclectic French filmmaker François Ozon at the helm, you never know which kind of film you're going to get. When Fall is Coming is a drama of atypical heroines that never follows predictable paths. Set mostly in Burgundy, in the French countryside, the story slowly distills its charms and poisons, exploring the thin line between good and evil.

This seemingly good-natured drama, imbued with scenes of commiseration, guilt, and relief, thrives on doubt and ambiguity, heightened by Ozon’s refusal to over-explain. The audience is invited to embrace uncertainty and draw their own conclusions. The understated mystery recalls Chabrol, with the academic form and classic staging perfectly suiting the film’s slightly opaque narrative. 

81-year-old actress Hélène Vincent, who was phenomenal in Brizé’s A Few Hours of Spring (2012), delivers a remarkable performance as Michelle Giraud—a devoted grandmother and former prostitute—capturing brief seconds of mental absence and confusion with striking precision. Ozon reunites with her and Josiane Balasko, who plays her best friend, seven years after By The Grace of God. More notably, he works again with Ludivine Sagnier—portraying Michelle’s depressed daughter—22 years after launching her career with Swimming Pool. Another successful reunion is with cinematographer Jérôme Alméras, Ozon’s collaborator on the 2012 drama-mystery In the House. 

When Fall is Coming unfolds in a familiar slow-burn fashion, but it’s a deeply satisfying watch. A film of small moments and subtle gestures, where performances radiate warmth and pain, gradually defining the characters. Following the playful extravagance of The Crime is Mine (2023), Ozon closely observes human behavior and emotions with profound quietude.

Bonjour Tristesse (2025)

Direction: Durga Chew-Bose
Country: France

This particularly unmemorable adaptation of Françoise Sagan’s 1954 novel Bonjour Tristesse fails to capture the soul of the story and lacks genuine drama. First-time director Durga Chew-Bose aims for subtlety, relying heavily on facial expressions and unspoken feelings, but the result often feels like a repetitive exercise rather than meaningful storytelling. The film manages to spark some minimal intrigue in its first half, only to lose momentum and control before collapsing into complete banality.

This chamber drama, steeped in calculated machinations and guilt, follows the manipulative 17-year-old Cécile (Lily McInerny), who enjoys a carefree summer at a French Riviera villa with her emotionally detached father, Raymond (Claes Bang), and his laid-back girlfriend, Elsa (Naïlia Harzoune). The arrival of fashion designer Anne Larsson (Chloë Sevigny), an old family friend, disrupts Cécile’s fragile summer equilibrium.

Bonjour Tristesse ends up as an irredeemably bland, formulaic coming-of-age drama that seldom rises above the absurdity of its own plot twists. The characters lack dimension—becoming increasingly grating—the dialogue remains superficial, and the performances feel awkward rather than authentic. This couldn’t be a more generic and uninspired entry into the genre. An empty summer reverie.

Holy Cow (2025)

Direction: Louise Courvoisier
Country: France 

Louise Courvoisier's feature debut, Holy Cow, is a sensitive coming of age tale set in Jura, a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region. Eighteen-year-old Totone (Clément Faveau) prefers hanging out and drinking with friends over helping his father on their cheese farm. But misfortune forces him to radically change his life. He finds solace in Marie-Lise (Maiwene Barthelemy), his first love, and in a newfound obsession: making the region’s best cheese.

The beauty of Holy Cow lies in its details as much as in the simplicity of its story, populated by genuine, believable characters. The nuanced performances from non-professional actors, the evocative use of location, and the sensitive script by Courvoisier and Théo Abadie elevates the film above many others in the genre.

The film’s humble nature and the setbacks faced by the protagonist never undercut its uplifting sense of satisfaction or its quiet celebration of romance and self-discovery. What’s perhaps most remarkable about Holy Cow is that it actually works in a quiet, unfussy way. There’s an honest emotional core in Courvoisier’s depiction of a teenager coming to terms with responsibility, morality, and friendship.

Viet and Nam (2025)

Direction: Minh Quy Truong
Country: Vietnam

Set in rural Vietnam in the year 2000, this malancholic and bucolic romantic drama is drenched in intermittent heavy rain, contemplating more than it discovers. Viet and Nam are two coal miners and lovers who dream of a different life abroad. Meanwhile, Nam’s mother obsessively searches for the remains of her husband, a casualty of the war, eventually crossing paths with a medium from the North.

Served by striking camerawork, Minh Quy Truong's second feature unfolds as a slow, profound excavation of a country’s lingering war wounds. Though ghostly and dreamlike, it weaves together queer romance, working-class struggle, historical trauma, grief, and spiritual longing. 

The film embraces a poetic, meditative style, with enigmatic flourishes and an eerie tranquility drawn from its rural landscapes. Its fluid sense of time and space recalls Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s cinema, albeit with a more grounded, objective gaze. The cast—composed of non-professional actors—delivers authentic, unembellished performances.

The film’s languid pacing and long, static 16mm shots may stretch its runtime, but Truong clearly trusts in the power of cinema and the viewer’s patience. Viet and Nam is a respectable film that can be moving in its infinite delicacy and quivering sensitivity—even if it doesn't entirely avoid the familiar traits of contemplative art-house cinema.

The Most Precious of Cargoes (2024)

Direction: Michel Hazanavicius
Country: France

From Michel Hazanavicius—the director of The Artist (2011)—The Most Precious of Cargoes marks his first animated feature, adapted from a novel by French playwright and author Jean-Claude Grumberg. The story centers on a poor woodcutter and his wife who, unable to have children, are unexpectedly blessed with a Jewish baby thrown from a moving train bound for Auschwitz. Narrated by the late Jean-Louis Trintignant—who passed away in 2022—the film is steeped in rural isolation, irrational beliefs, and the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust, a hauntingly fertile ground for such a tale. Though animated, this is not an easy watch—nor should it be. It serves as a quiet, poignant resistance to the gradual and inevitable fading of our collective memory.

Hazanavicius, whose roots lie in an Eastern European Jewish family, crafts a postmodern fairy tale with simplicity and effectiveness, evoking deep emotion through acts of kindness and humanity. Even with modest dialogues, he generates a great deal of drama with a fierce kind of courage. This is reinforced by Alexandre Desplat’s oversentimental score.

Sinners (2025)

Direction: Ryan Coogler
Country: USA

Sinners—a wildly entertaining film that, while echoing many others, ends up unlike anything you've seen—marks the fourth collaboration between director Ryan Coogler (Creed, 2015; Black Panther, 2018) and actor Michael B. Jordan. It’s far from the conventional blockbuster one might expect, fusing themes of segregation and racism with vampire lore, gangster drama, and religious undercurrents, all orchestrated with a sense of direction that is both bold and disarming.

Set in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in the early 1930s, the story follows gangster twins Stack and Smoke (Jordan excels in the dual role), who return from Chicago and take their young cousin Sammie Moore (Miles Caton)—the son of a preacher and an aspiring blues musician—under their wing. They purchase a sawmill from a Ku Klux Klan member and convert it into a juke joint. On its opening night, the venue is suddenly overrun by vampires.

Resembling a smart mash-up of Dee Rees’ Mudbound and Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn, Sinners occasionally takes bold stylistic detours with flashes of modernity, culminating in a feverish crescendo that evokes some of the most iconic action and vampire films. It may not send chills down your spine, but it's a thrill ride—bolstered by confident performances, a compelling recreation of the 1930s American South, and impressive special effects. It also lands like a slap to the face in terms of musical impact.

Coogler’s achievement is also technical—the film was shot in two distinct formats—and the vampire parable it weaves feels more timely and relevant than it initially appears.

Universal Language (2025)

Direction: Matthew Rankin
Country: Canada

Universal Language is a stylistically and structurally interesting piece of poetic madness set in the dreary Canadian city of Winnipeg, where the locals, inexplicably, speak Farsi. The film’s mood is peculiar, gravitating between the absurdist aesthetics of Roy Andersson and Wes Anderson, and the emotional cadences reminiscent of Abbas Kiarostami.

In his sophomore feature, co-writer, director, and actor Matthew Rankin plays Matthew, a man who leaves his bureaucratic job in Quebec to return to his frigid hometown of Winnipeg, hoping to reconnect with his mother. Instead, he forms unexpected bonds with two kind-hearted children, a stranger his mother now lives with, and an eccentric tour guide.

The film’s atmosphere evokes a bygone era, and what begins as a puzzle—initially cold and disjointed—gradually coalesces into an emotional whole, its pieces ultimately fitting together. There is never a moment when the viewer is unaware of the film’s constructed artifice, yet the experience isn’t exactly off-putting. It demands patience, certainly, but its melancholy and arid tone are softened by geometrically composed frames that establish a contemplative relationship between space and architecture.

Rankin dares to think outside the box, presenting a visual and narrative approach that defies conventional standards. His movie comes with a hard core of disillusionment but also hope in humanity, and viewers in tune with his offbeat sensibilities will enjoy both the deadpan humor and the bold unconventional choices.

Warfare (2025)

Direction: Alex Garland, Ray Mendoza
Country: USA

With Warfare, co-director Alex Garland reaffirms his talent for crafting visceral, unflinchingly realistic war films, recounting the harrowing true story of a group of Navy SEAL snipers trapped in a commandeered Iraqi house during a high-risk U.S. Marines operation. Garland shares directing duties with Ray Mendoza, a former soldier who served on the actual mission, lending the film an added layer of authenticity.

If Civil War generated a buzz ahead of its success in 2024, then Warfare, featuring a stellar ensemble cast, delivers an even more intense experience, filled with brutal moments of pain and suffering, and punctuated by chilling silences and the muffled screams of despair. Be warned: the graphic violence may be deeply unsettling for some viewers.

The film portrays a grim chapter of American military history, one that not only sets your heart racing but also provokes reflection on the brutality and futility of war. Shot with unwavering precision and driven by a chaotic, raw, and primitive force, Warfare remains relentlessly claustrophobic and emotionally gripping from start to finish. The frequent use of close-ups deepens the audience's connection to the characters' trauma, making this one of the most nightmarish depictions of modern warfare ever captured on screen—an unforgettable descent into the psyche of men at war, and a powerful, if harrowing, cinematic experience.

Mickey 17 (2025)

Direction: Bong Joon Ho
Country: USA / South Korea

Mickey 17, based on the novel of the same name by Edward Ashton, is an ambitious but imperfect sci-fi blockbuster laced with black humor, social satire, and political bite. It centers on Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson), who volunteers to travel to a freezing planet as an “expendable”—a human whose body is cloned and reloaded with memories each time he dies. The planet is not only home to misunderstood alien beings called Creepers but is also governed by an authoritarian couple (Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette) with bizarre, decadent tendencies.

The film, co-written and directed by first-rate Korean director Bong Joon Ho, doesn’t avoid some lengths and histrionics. One moment, it slips into a romantic soap opera that irritates more than it intrigues; the next, it evokes the spirit of resistance cinema—admirable in intention, but never fully realized in execution. Much like its protagonist, the narrative seems to reset every time it gains momentum, and the distinctly American brand of humor often feels bland or misplaced.

Mickey 17 ultimately falls short of expectations, and that is particularly painful given Bong's track record with masterpieces like Parasite (2019), Memories of Murder (2003), Mother (2009), and Snowpiercer (2013). Realism and caricature get locked in the same structure, and while the ballsy social commentary still holds up, the film never delivers the full-impact blow we hoped for. 

Ghost Trail (2025)

Direction: Jonathan Millet
Country: France

Inspired by true events, Ghost Trail marks the remarkable fictional feature debut of Jonathan Millet, who, drawing on his background as a documentarian, spent considerable time researching the subject of his film. The story follows a Syrian literature professor who, after being released from one of Bashar al-Assad’s notorious prisons, sets out to track down his torturer—someone whose face he has never seen, and who likewise never saw his. Now living in Strasbourg, France, this fractured man operates with the aid of an invisible network of six others, spread across the globe, all seeking justice from the shadows.

This intelligent spy thriller, steeped in obsession and executed with methodical subtlety, plunges directly into the recent, harrowing history of a wounded Syria. Tense and controlled, the film achieves a disturbingly realistic tone, grounded in believable character dynamics that immediately pull the viewer in and sustain engagement throughout. The pursuit is long, slow, and fraught with uncertainty, but the tension pays off. The protagonist, Hamid (Adam Bessa), though initially consumed by vengeance, is wise enough to make choices that allow him to cling to the possibility of a ‘normal’ life.

As merciless as it is hard-hitting, Ghost Trail offers a searing portrait of political trauma and the tangled drive for retribution. Its moral complexities, coupled with sharp storytelling and Bessa’s outstanding performance, make it compulsively watchable. Eschewing physical violence in favor of mounting psychological tension, this debut signals the arrival of a filmmaker discovering his power.

The New Boy (2025)

Direction: Warwick Thornton
Country: Australia

The Australian director, screenwriter, and cinematographer Warwick Thornton earned well-deserved attention, with engrossing dramas such as Samson and Delilah (2009) and Sweet Country (2017). His latest feature, The New Boy, centers on a nine-year-old orphaned Aboriginal boy (first-timer Aswan Reid) with mysterious healing powers. After being found in the desert, he is taken to a remote monastery run by the enigmatic Sister Eileen (Cate Blanchett, also credited as co-producer). She is aided by two Aboriginal converts to Christianity: Sister Mum (Deborah Mailman), a woman burdened by the loss of her children, and the reserved George (Wayne Blair).

There’s a certain coyness to A New Boy that suggests the film needed another draft, and its conclusion becomes unfavorably literal. While the film may strike a welcome chord for some for its portrayal of faith as both solace and a struggle, it largely fails to construct a compelling narrative arc capable to surprise.

By walking a super-thin line between grim believability and curious insensitivity, the film underutilizes its rich premise, becoming tacky and all too easy in spots. Thornton, who did much better in previous features, sacrificed tone for something more systematic and formulaic, but passed a clear message: Christianity triumphs imperatively. It’s unfortunate that this message arrives in a visually polished but vacuous package.

Blanchett’s reliably committed performance couldn’t redeem the film, though the evocative score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis reinforces both the emotional and the unfathomable.

Vulcanizadora (2025)

Direction: Joel Potrykus
Country: USA

The films of independent filmmaker Joel Potrykus have achieved cult status, often presenting high-risk material that yields unexpected rewards. His latest black comedy thriller, Vulcanizadora, follows two emotionally unhinged outfits—the hyperactive, motor-mouthed Dereck Skiba (Potrykus) and the laconic, perpetually bored Marty Jackitansky (Joshua Burge). They make a bizarre pact deep in the Michigan woods. A decade after Buzzard, Potrykus and Burge reprise their roles in this psychotic delirium laced with psychological horror.

The actors dominate every scene, clearly relishing the opportunity to explore territory most filmmakers would shy away from. They do so with a disarming simplicity. The subject matter is anything but light, and the film’s pull comes from the ambiguity and tension it steadily builds.

Bone-dry in tone, Vulcanizadora offers zero warmth, scant compassion, and weird characters. There is something profoundly unsettling about this tale of anguish, as Potrykus probes human vulnerability with a nameless, creeping unease. He reminds us that there’s still vitality in low-budget independent cinema, and his oddly sorrowful mindbender—flawed and fascinating—leaves its mark.

Grand Tour (2025)

Direction: Miguel Gomes
Country: Portugal / other

A loving tribute to silent dramas and classic historical adventures, Grand Tour—filmed in breathtaking black-and-whit—is a art-house triumph co-written and directed by Miguel Gomes, the visionary behind Tabu (2012), Arabian Nights (2015), and The Tsugua Diaries (2021). Evoking the spirit of Murnau and Pabst, while channeling Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo and elements of Von Sternberg and Mizoguchi, the film thrives on the cultural richness of its settings, imbued with an underground charisma and an enigmatic touch.

Inspired by a passage from William Somerset Maugham’s 1930 travel memoir The Gentleman in the Parlour, the story unfolds in 1918, following Edward Abbot (Gonçalo Waddington), a restless bohemian and possible spy stationed in Rangoon. His determined fiancée, Molly Singleton (Crista Alfaiate), sets out on a journey across Asia in pursuit of him. While he wants freedom, she wants marriage.

As comprehensive and lucid as a tone poem, Grand Tour is a dreamlike, tragicomic odyssey—a lavish production in which every frame pulses with expressiveness and dramatic force. Pushing intuition to its limits, Gomes liberates himself from the conventions of historical reconstruction. The result is a hybrid of experimental cinema, documentary, and fiction, through which he explores the wavering contours of human behavior with poetic clarity. His mastery of script, camera, and performance direction is striking throughout.

With just a bit more emotional depth and heightened tension, the film could have soared even higher. Still, Grand Tour exercises a powerful grip and stands as a strong recommendation.

La Cocina (2025)

Direction: Alonso Ruizpalacios
Country: Mexico / USA

Adapted from Arnold Wesker's play, La Cocina  is an exercise in style, full of highs and lows. It portrays a large, chaotic, multicultural New York kitchen where steel clangs, voices clash, and bodies move with tense urgency. Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios (Gueros, 2014; Museo, 2018) crafts a hot-blooded, surreal, and poetic spectacle that often resembles a wild circus.

Amid the clamor, dreams and personal struggles simmer—money has mysteriously vanished from one of the registers, and suspicion falls on Pedro Ruiz (Raúl Briones), a volatile, immature Mexican cook who has gotten Julia (Rooney Mara), an American waitress, pregnant. The film’s atmosphere is zany and sometimes disorienting, yet it retains a certain magnetic pull.

Undocumented immigrants and the marginalized are at the heart of the story—they’re indispensable and yet exploited—and the film offers fleeting but poignant glimpses into their roles in the restaurant’s ecosystem, which mirrors the nation’s broader social dynamics. The characters feel vivid and authentic, each with distinct aspirations and personalities, contributing to a frenzied spectacle that veers between hilarious and excruciating. 

La Cocina thrives primarily on its kinetic energy, with bursts of anger pushed deliberately to extremes, while also grappling with the dehumanizing mechanisms of an overburdened capitalist system that traps its workers. The score insightfully conveys the characters’ inner turmoil, and visually, cinematographer Juan Pablo Ramírez excels with striking black-and-white imagery and expressive camera work.

The Marching Band (2025)

Direction: Emmanuel Courcol
Country: France

The Matching Band, a comedy-drama co-written and directed by Emmanuel Courcol, navigates admirable humanism and warm emotion while exploring the fragile bond between two brothers who have only just discovered each other’s existence. Set in northern France, the story follows Thibaut (Benjamin Lavernhe), a successful 37-year-old conductor in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant, who also learns that he was adopted as a child. His only hope lies in contacting his biological brother, Jimmy (Pierre Lottin), whom he had never known. Despite their vastly different upbringings and lifestyles, the brothers find a shared language in music.

The Marching Band is an optimistic yet ultimately heartbreaking drama, elevated by a spirited score but marred by uneven performances—Lavernhe is more convincing than Lottin, who previously worked with Courcol in The Big Hit (2020). The film sometimes feels like a retread of familiar stories, revealing a degree of superficiality in certain areas. Its take on social determinism carries some heart, but despite its transparent staging, it lacks the raw urgency and piercing precision of Ken Loach’s realism. Instead, Courcol leans into light comedy and a saccharine tone that occasionally borders on condescension.

The plight of the mining community and its marching band, along with the romance between Jimmy and fellow band member Sabrina (Sarah Suco), feels underdeveloped—more like narrative filler than fully fleshed-out subplots. While the script doesn’t always ring true, the film ultimately lands with a powerful dramatic finale.

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (2025)

Direction: Rungano Nyoni
Country: Zambia / UK / other

In Zambian Rungano Nyoni’s On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, characters move through a world marred by sexual abuse, trauma, and an infuriating societal passivity. Nyoni, who gained international acclaim with I Am Not a Witch (2017), also penned the script, centering the story on Shula (Susan Chardy), a fragile and apparently cold middle-class woman who shows no grief when she discovers her uncle’s body lying in the street. 

This moving, quietly furious drama, laced with moments of dark humor, gathers powerful elements to present a stirring call for a more just and self-aware Africa. It offers a compelling lens through which to examine Zambian traditions, cultural attitudes, and widespread indifference to issues like statutory rape and systemic sexism. Haunting and unsettling, the narrative’s ending may initially feel unresolved, yet compassion weaves subtly through the film. The emotionally fractured Shula is likened to a guinea fowl—an alert, talkative African bird known for warning others of lurking danger.

Tonally assured throughout, On Becoming a Guinea Fowl delivers a piercing, unflinching portrait of a family in desperate need of healing. Its ethos hits hard, and Nyoni deserves high praise for tackling such a difficult subject with discernment and sensitivity.

Black Bag (2025)

Direction: Steven Soderbergh
Country: USA 

Black Bag—a term referring to clandestine operations carried out by spies to steal secrets or sensitive documents—is a slow-burning thriller directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring an ensemble cast spearheaded by Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett. Fassbender’s character, George Woodhouse, is loosely inspired by CIA legend James Jesus Angleton.

Set in London over a taut, fast-paced week, the film doesn’t skimp on suspense—and even less on bite. David Koepp’s sharp script guides us through an unflashy yet gripping narrative of secret agents—two of them bound by an unshakable marital bond—doubtful behaviors and motives, and slippery professional relationships. Micro-aggressions, overt confrontations, cynical exchanges, and provocative mind games abound, all delivered with the right mix of irresistible glamour and disdainful coldness.

Though a minor entry in Soderbergh’s filmography, Black Bag brews a sleek concoction of twisted love and espionage with classy images and perfectly written dialogue. It’s a methodical, disconcerting, and deceptively simplistic effort from the American filmmaker, whose restrained touch here proves unexpectedly enjoyable.

Snow Leopard (2024)

Direction: Pema Tseden
Country: China

Snow Leopard, the final film by Pema Tseden, impresses with its stunning visuals but falters in story development and character depth. Tibetan culture takes center stage in this comedy-drama, which carries the intriguing simplicity of a fable. However, its execution often feels overly theatrical, preventing it from leaving a lasting impact.

The humor wears thin over time, and the film’s polished aesthetic renders some scenes overly staged. The narrative also suffers from the repetitive use of its central motif. Snow Leopard is carefully and calculatingly naive, with a story structure that remains distractingly uninspired. It aims for gravity but its sincerity falls flat. Tseden will likely be more enduringly remembered for Balloon (2019).

Girls Will Be Girls (2024)

Direction: Shuchi Talati
Country: India / France 

Sixteen-year-old Mira (Preeti Panigrahi) leads the life of a model student at an elite boarding school in northern India. Unexpectedly, her mother, Anila (Kani Kusruti), develops an unsettling fascination with Mira’s charismatic classmate and first boyfriend, Sri (Kesav Binoy Kiron), who is unusually mature for his age.

Girls Will Be Girls is a bold, emotionally layered coming-of-age drama that weaves together themes of family, education, and patriarchal influence in India. Shuchi Talati’s feature debut is firmly anchored in its cultural context, distinguished by a sharp script and an impeccably cast ensemble. The story unfolds with quiet force, grounded in authenticity, with Panigrahi delivering a standout performance. Talati emerges as a rare director unafraid to linger in a moment, allowing scenes to breathe. Her film is filled with contemplation, tension, and discovery, gliding between the social and the intimate with a graceful, unhurried style that avoids sentimentality.

Although not reinventing the coming-of-age genre, Talati handles the complexities of female sexuality with remarkable nuance, and Girls Will Be Girls explores far more than the usual tropes of teenage love. The tender thrill of first romance is present, but it’s painfully complicated by a forbidden familial intrusion, turning sweetness into something far more fraught and haunting.