Rising international talents bringing their singular visions to the screen
Introducing a new wave of gifted storytellers to Canadian audiences, the films in this series reflect the well of ingenuity and cinematic prowess emerging from all corners of the world. Form, style and genre either blur, bend or extend in these works, weaving regional flourishes and breathing fresh air into familiar narratives. Or inventing entirely new ones. This is the place to surrender expectations and discover a hidden gem.
— Sonja Baksa, Vanguard Curator
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Lady
Olive Nwosu’s dazzling feature debut follows a young taxi driver who reluctantly takes on a side job chauffeuring a group of sex workers to their nocturnal visits across Lagos.
Forest High
High in the northern Alps, three women take turns caring for a mountain lodge as hikers come and go. Divided into three sections, we follow each caretaker as they settle in for their respective season and have their lives touched in different ways.
Image: © The Blue raincoat
Lust
Ralitza Petrova follows her Golden Leopard–winning debut with an emotionally textured drama about a middle-aged prison psychologist whose carefully managed routine unravels when she must travel to Bulgaria to settle her late, estranged father’s affairs.
Image: © Aporia Filmworks_Screening Emotions
I Plant My Hand in the Garden
Boris and Hoda, a newly married couple from Serbia and Iran, respectively, embark on a new chapter of their lives in Berlin. As they anticipate the birth of their child, they refuse to be defined by societal expectations.
Hear the Yellow
Suna returns to her native Anatolian village for her nephew’s wedding, where the mystery of her sister’s disappearance still looms over the small community. Determined to finally get to the bottom of it, she must reckon with complicated circumstances.
Image: © Anagraffilm
Ana, En Passant
Fernanda Salgado makes an elegant feature debut with this lyrical animated drama about a young Black woman returning to her late grandmother’s native town in Brazil to make sense of distant memories and her family’s legacy.
Hearing
Bảo Lê makes a notable entrance with this lush, meticulously composed feature debut that unfolds as a series of film tableaux drawing on moments in the life of a middle-aged mechanic whose work involves installing decibel meters across public spaces.
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That Shadow Fading
Samuel Urbina's feature debut is a quiet, deeply affecting mother and son drama following Sol, a single mother about to become an empty nester as her son Junior prepares to move to Lima upon graduating college.
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