On the festival trail, among nearly 290 productions, it's easy to lose track. Fortunately, during New Horizons we have a team of excellent guides who will lead you through the programme and point out what they consider most interesting.
Here's top 10 of the New Horizons programme by Marcin Pieńkowski, festival's director, who will lead you towards excellent cinema!
Marcin Pieńkowski's festival top 10
1. All We Imagine as Light, dir. by Payal Kapadia
Cannes Grand Prix. A cinema filled with hope and love for an often cruel world, tender and imbued with authenticity, yet at the same time metaphysical. It is also a brilliantly edited symphony of a big city, which sometimes stifles the feelings of its inhabitants.
2. Explanation for Everything, dir. by Gábor Reisz
A single high school graduation incident shows torn Hungary (and in fact Poland, Europe, the world...), and an extremely intelligent portrayal of youth. Winner of the Orizzonti Award at Venice. A must-see!
3. Grand Tour, dir. by Miguel Gomes
One of the most unusual films of this year's Cannes Film Festival. A peculiar tale of fiancés separated on the Asian frontier, which captivates with its brilliant combination of a poetic travelogue and road cinema.
4. Julie Keeps Quiet, dir. by Leonardo van Dijl
Sensitive, moving and precise, but above all highly relevant cinema, asking key questions about the meaning of women's silence in a clash with a calculating oppressor. Instead of smashed up rackets on the court (Julie is a tennis player), there is a silent struggle for survival here.
5. The Other Way Around, dir. byJonas Trueba
Cannes award-winning, highly intelligent cinema about relationships and a perverse homage to classic Hollywood romantic comedies. The protagonists are Ale and Alex, a couple of 14 years, who want to organise a party to celebrate... the end of them as a couple.
6.The Beast, dir. by Bertrand Bonello
The hero of this year's retrospective in an epic version. The Beast is a wonderful hybrid of science-fiction, melodrama and horror cinema. There is only one Bonello! And Léa Seydoux (in several versions here).
7. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, dir. by Rungano Nyoni
Nyoni again mixes realism with poeticism and surrealism with naturalism, drawing a portrait of a local community unable to escape toxic tradition, the cult of the family and the iron-fisted patriarchy, which relegates women to the role of servants and child bearers. Somewhere rebellion, or at least laughter is lurking. Nothing but to become a guinea fowl....
8.Sasquatch Sunset, dir. by Nathan & David Zellner
The most quirky film of the year. Fun, wild, minimalist road movie. A walk through the woods with ‘bigfeet’...You can expect anything here!
9. Dahomey, dir. by Mati Diop
Winner of this year's Golden Bear. A remarkable phantomological-ethnographic documentary. Precise and moving, profoundly political and reckoning. By the way, take a look at Mati Diop's Cannes award-winning Atlantics.
10. Nagisa Ōshima (retrospective) – everything
Contestant, new-waver, one of the most important auteurs of the Japanese cinema. 14 films, several of which will be shown in rare 35mm film! A must-see!
And also:
Amadeus! Remember that as part of the festival, the Hala Stulecia will host a screening of Forman's legendary masterpiece, with the Krakow Philharmonic Choir and the Beethoven Academy Orchestra performing live!