Animalia
Contemporary Cinema
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1h 31m
Directed by Sofia Alaoui | 91 mins | 2023
Alaoui’s atmospheric and entrancing debut feature stars a superb Oumaïma Barid as Itto, a newly married and heavily pregnant woman from a rural Berber background who is separated from her husband (Mehdi Dehbi) and his upper-class family when extraterrestrials touching down outside Casablanca leads to a national state of emergency, using every resource at her command to find her way back to a “home” in which she’s often made to feel like an unwanted alien guest herself. A wry study of class divisions in contemporary Morocco that’s also a taut space invaders thriller, bolstered by Amine Bouhafa’s ominous, brooding score and the gorgeous photography of DP Noé Bach.
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Crestone
Directed by Marnie Ellen Hertzler | 73 mins | 2020
In a world that undulates between fact and fiction, digital and physical, a group of SoundCloud rappers lives a solitary, post-societal existence in the desert town of Crestone, Colorado. Once a religious and spiritual mecca for many, Crestone’s ... -
Days
Leaving May 1
Directed by Tsai Ming-liang | 127 mins | 2020
The parallel narratives of a middle-aged man seeking treatment for a chronic illness in Hong Kong (Lee Kang-sheng) and a Laotian immigrant in Bangkok (Anong Houngheuangsy) eventually, finally, meet in a moment of ecstatic release.
