Films — by Collection

Staff Picks: Bill Gosden

I have no doubt at all that Burning and The Wild Pear Tree belong on this list, but I am doing myself the favour of saving them for the big screen (and avoiding the water-marked, time-coded online screeners that are the programmer’s stock in trade). I hope the pleasure provided by countless other films on the programme is clear from our descriptions on the site and in the brochure. Here are twelve stand-outs for me, with two places taken up by absolute all-time favourites.

Birds of Passage

Pájaros de verano

Cristina Gallego, Ciro Guerra

The ancient traditions of Colombia’s indigenous Wayuu are shaped by an ambitious matriarch to stake a place for her clan in the burgeoning drug economy of the 1970s.

Cold War

Zimna wojna

Paweł Pawlikowski

Winner of the Cannes Best Director award, Paweł Pawlikowski (Ida) has crafted a brilliant, kaleidoscopic vision of 1950s Europe, bursting with music, dance and the turbulent love of two musicians caught between East and West.

Shoplifters

Manbiki kazoku

Kore-eda Hirokazu

This year’s surprise Cannes Palme d’Or winner is one of Japanese director Kore-eda Hirokazu’s finest films, about a loving, unconventional family making ends meet on the margins of Tokyo.

Yellow is Forbidden

Pietra Brettkelly

Kiwi director Pietra Brettkelly takes us into the opulent world of show-stopping Chinese designer Guo Pei as she prepares to make her Paris debut and seeks admission into the exclusive club of haute couture.