April

When a newborn baby dies after an otherwise routine delivery, obstetrician Nina (Ia Sukhitashvili) falls under suspicion for negligence. The investigation threatens to expose her quiet sideline, performing abortions to the women in the surrounding villages; controversial and illegal work in Eastern Georgia, as it is elsewhere. She has allies within the clinic, but the political situation is fraught with danger.

Set against the austerely beautiful Georgian countryside, Dea Kulumegashvili’s second feature (after Beginning, 2020) deploys a barrage of striking visual and sonic effects to create a singularly immersive experience. While this distinctive style might initially challenge the viewer, the cumulative impact is extraordinary — and April has been compared to the work of Jonathan Glazer, Carlos Reygadas and Michael Haneke. Unsettling, mysterious, and “difficult” in the best ways, this is a movie cinephiles need to make time for.

One of the best films of the 21st century. Expands your conception of what cinema can be.

Wendy Ide, Screen Daily

Altogether extraordinary. Unfolds with the high-stakes, breath-stopping tension of a thriller.

Guy Lodge, Variety

Brilliant. A filmmaker so exquisitely precise in the design and choreography of her visuals…Kulumbegashvili’s brutal formalism and intellectual rigour contribute to a feminism fraught with agonising, self-conscious contradiction, which provides no glib, easy answers about sisterhood or solidarity.

Jessica Kiang, Sight and Sound