10 · 21 · 23

The Critics' Week at the 21st FICM

Omar Sosa Topete

Joined by Daniela Michel, founder and general director of the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM), Ava Cahen, the general delegate of Critics' Week, kicked off the program dedicated to this parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival at the 21st FICM with the presentation of Àma Gloria (2023, dir. Marie Amachoukeli).

"It is always a great honor and a great pleasure to be here in Morelia, because it is important for us to show our discoveries. Last year, for example, we were able to see Dalva (2022, dir. Emmanuelle Nicot), Aftersun (2022, dir. Charlotte Welles) and La jauría (2022, dir. Andrés Ramírez Pulido)," Cahen said about the relationship between Critics' Week and FICM.

Àma Gloria accompanies Cléo, a six-year-old girl, during the last summer she will live with the person she loves the most, her nanny, who is forced to return to her country of origin to take care of her own children. In this film, live-action scenes are mixed with animated sequences that bring us closer to the vision of the main character.

Daniela Michel took the opportunity to thank Cahen and the Critics' Week team for choosing short films screened at FICM and taking them to Cannes's next edition. Michel also thanked the inclusion of a young Mexican filmmaker in the Next Step program.

This year, the program features a particularity shared by the selected filmmakers, which offers us a new panorama. The main focus of the stories is not to show us the world around the characters, but rather to talk about how they try to survive the challenges that threaten their sensibility.

In addition to Àma Gloria (2023), the festival will screen seven more feature films that were part of the 2023 Critics' Week:

Lost Country (2023, dir. Vladimir Perišić), a film set in Serbia during the student demonstrations of 1996. Stefan, a fifteen-year-old boy, must confront the voice that contradicts both his own and his friends' ideals: his mother. The wonderful thing about Lost Country (2023) is how the director successfully films the intimate and political ripening that a young man goes through during his adolescence.

On the theme of adolescence, Tiger Stripes (2023, dir. Amanda Nell Eu) seeks to flip coming-of-age stories by showing Zaffan, a twelve-year-old girl, discovering a secret about her physical identity. Tiger Stripes (2023) is the first Malaysian film in which the female body is the source of anguish, dread, and fantasies. It seeks to destroy stereotypes and ideas that still govern women's lives in Malaysia. In addition, this film was awarded the Grand Prix at the 62nd Critics' Week.

Shifting the landscape, but remaining on the weight of mandates and their consequences, the Korean director, Jason Yu. In his first feature film, Sleep (2023), Yu portrays two first-time parents' nights rendered impossible by the elemental fears that surround them.

Another debut feature, also dealing with vertigo, is part of the Critics' Week. In Le Ravissement (2023, dir. Iris Kaltenbäck), inspired by a true story, the French director tells the story of Lydia, a midwife who takes care of mothers giving birth and their newborns but lacks someone to look after her. Le Ravissement won the SACD Prize, awarded by the Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers.

Continuing with another female character, Inshallah a Boy (2023, dir. Amjad Al Rasheed) tells the story of Nawal, who loses her husband and is forced to fight for her daughter and her home. The film takes place in modern-day Jordan, a society in which having a son turns things upside down. The director shows with great empathy and clarity a situation that may sound unlikely to some but is still current.

Brazilian director Lillah Halla also seeks to portray society through her lens. Levante (2023) uses fiction to portray a harsh reality that permeates Brazilian society: authoritarian and anti-right policies towards women and LGBTQ+ people. The story follows Sofia, a 17-year-old girl, who becomes the target of a fundamentalist group when she seeks to legally terminate an unwanted pregnancy, but her close ones accompany her through the blindness of the crowd. This film won Lillah Halla the Fipresci Award in the parallel sections, which recognizes directors and films that set an enterprising example.

On the other side of the coin is a story that tells the life of two abandoned brothers, Purdey and Makenzy, which, without the need of falling into misery, shows us the process of learning and strengthening the bonds of brotherhood through a tender journey. Il pleut dans la maison (2023, dir. Paloma Sermone-Daï) is told with sincerity and affection, becoming a raw beauty. It also earned Sermon-Daï the French Touch Jury Prize, which aims to strengthen young French filmmakers.

Daniela Michel took the opportunity to thank Cahen and the Critics' Week team for choosing short films screened at FICM and taking them to Cannes in the next edition. In addition, Michel pointed out the invitation to young Mexican talent: "In addition, they extend an invitation through the Next Step program, where one young Mexican director of these short films is invited to develop their project in France. It is a very generous invitation and we owe it to Ava."

The Critics' Week, with first and second works by young directors, is once again a clear sign that cinema is slowly transforming and growing, little by little, in a more global and resplendent way. "This year we are presenting eight films from Asia, Europe and Latin America. I am convinced that these films will show us that there is hope and that independent cinema has a great future ahead of it," Cahen concluded.