Films

Mary and her daughter Chloe are on the run. They must conceal their true identities if they are to have even the slightest chance of living the normal life Chloe longs for. But is such a life even possible? Directors Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky return with their brutal take on the superhero genre, in which the simple desire to be free to be oneself can have dangerous consequences. Their first film, shot in Canada, was widely acclaimed by critics around the world, and now, after an eight-year hiatus, the creative team returns to uncover more of the secrets hidden within the world of the Freaks.

Junk Head can easily be counted among the most original films of recent years. It stands out for its unique stop-motion animation, oppressive post-apocalyptic atmosphere, and brilliantly rendered bizarre characters struggling to survive at any cost. Following its international success and its reception at Future Gate, the director continues in Junk World, which takes us more than a thousand years before the events of the first film. Its protagonist, a diminutive robot named Robin, embarks on a long and arduous journey filled with dangers and encounters with the obscure inhabitants of this inhospitable wasteland. The story is brought to life through distinctive animation of remarkable technical precision.

Colony is far from just another run-of-the-mill zombie film. Visionary director Yeon Sang-ho returns with the finely honed style familiar from his cult hit Train to Busan. Once again, Colony makes use of claustrophobic spaces and the impossibility of escape, but this time its distinctive protagonists are confined to a skyscraper housing not only a department store and offices, but also a highly secret laboratory. When an unknown and extremely fast-mutating virus escapes from the facility, an unconventional group of survivors must flee before it is too late.

Although the films made by the Nigerian collective The Critics may lack lavish production design, spectacular effects or Hollywood stars, they are nevertheless carving out an uncompromising path through the world of independent cinema. Working in extremely difficult conditions, these “critics” create one DIY project after another, driven solely by their boundless love of filmmaking. They transform their challenging reality into science-fiction worlds brimming with creativity, unconstrained by the limitations of major studios. Their work proves that genuine cinematic gems can emerge even in circumstances not traditionally associated with science-fiction filmmaking.

Sometimes all it takes is a single phone call to land you in an utterly unenviable situation. Such is the fate of Amos and Gemma, the protagonists of the dark sci-fi comedy Yesterday Island. They must work together to escape a time loop they have brought upon themselves. Far from being a standard example of a genre that churns out titles by the dozen, Yesterday Island offers no likeable heroes, but rather complicated characters who must first reassess their priorities and learn to rely on someone other than themselves.

In 2033, a once-popular film studio is little more than a fragment of its former glory. No new film has been made there for years, and its only inhabitants are a former film-star cat, the owner and his accountant, and a small maintenance crew that includes the lonely security guard Zha. He embarks on a virtual romantic journey through fantastical worlds. Meanwhile, filmmakers finally return to the studio – but the film’s imagined climax is to be a shot in which the entire studio is completely destroyed. The film premiered in the prestigious Perspectives section of the Berlinale, where it received numerous positive reviews and a strong response from audiences.

Makoto Ueda has long been a fixture at genre festivals around the world. As the screenwriter of films such as River and Beyond Infinite Two Minutes, he has shown an extraordinary gift for constructing stories that may seem utterly mad at first glance, yet can also move audiences deeply. He demonstrates the same talent in his directorial debut, You Are The Film, which transforms the cinema into a portal through which the lives of two strangers begin to intertwine in remarkable ways. This inventive genre play never loses momentum and makes remarkably imaginative use of its modest running time.