EMPIRE OF LIGHT

Sam Mendes fills his superbly cast, deeply personal drama with surprises, all emerging from a cinema in a working-class town in 1980s England. Hilary (Olivia Colman, in another knockout performance) is a single woman who runs the ticket booth,…

ARGENTINA, 1985

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¡VIVA EL CINE! | WORLD Argentina, US 2022, 140 mins, Director: Santiago Mitre One of the most significant legal trials in Argentina’s history serves as the basis for Santiago Mitre’s (Paulina, The Summit) new feature, arriving at MVFF fresh…

XALÉ

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WORLD Senegal 2022, 101 min, Director: Moussa Sene Absa Acclaimed Senegalese director Moussa Sene Absa (Madame Brouette, MVFF26) unites ancient and contemporary modes of storytelling in this visually stunning and emotionally resonant tale…

WHINA

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TRAILBLAZERS | MIND THE GAP | WORLD New Zealand 2021, 112 min, Directors: James Napier Robertson, Paula Whetu Jones This inspirational film reveals the extraordinary life of New Zealand’s Dame Whina Cooper, a courageous Māori woman whose…

THE WONDER

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WORLD US, UK, Ireland 2022, 102 min, Director: Sebastián Lelio Sebastián Lelio (A Fantastic Woman, MVFF40) directs this gripping adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s (Room, MVFF38) revisionist historical novel set in her native Ireland. It’s…

THE SWIMMERS

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MIND THE GAP | WORLD US, UK, 2022 | Director: Sally El Hosaini Yusra Mardini cherished one goal: To swim for Syria’s Olympic team. But that aspiration seemed dashed when her homeland’s civil war made her a refugee. Sally El Hosaini’s…

THE SON

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WORLD UK, US, France 2022, 123 min, Director: Florian Zeller Writer-director Florian Zeller returns with an adaptation of the second play in his family trilogy, which — like his 2020 Oscar®-winning film The Father (MVFF43) —examines the…

THE PASSENGERS OF THE NIGHT

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SPIRIT | WORLD France 2022, 111 min, Director: Mikhaël Hers The dissolution of a marriage is always difficult, and it’s even more so for Elisabeth (the iconic Charlotte Gainsbourg, radiant), in early 1980s Paris. She’s never been in a…

THE LOST KING

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WORLD UK 2022, 108 min, Director: Stephen Frears In 2004, Philippa Langley (Sally Hawkins, Spencer, MVFF44) takes her son to see a production of Richard III. She becomes intrigued by the story of the malformed king who, per Shakespeare’s play,…

THE BLUE CAFTAN

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HEART | WORLD Morocco 2022, 124 min, Director: Maryam Touzani In Salé, Morocco, Halim (Saleh Bakri, Costa Brava, Lebanon) and his ailing wife, Mina (Lubna Azabal, Adam), own and operate a made-to-measure dress shop. Halim handcrafts caftans…