Desert of Namibia
Directed by Yoko Yamanaka
21-year-old Kana works a disaffected job at a beauty salon, her mood oscillating between soaring highs and deep lows, her relationship devolving into the increasingly volatile predicaments. Yoko Yamanaka's Directors' Fortnight-selected sophomore effort provides a frank and dynamic examination of womanhood and mental health in contemporary Japan.
A Tokyo greengrocer puts his livelihood at risk to extend help to a group of Chinese exchange students. A lesser-seen masterpiece from director Nobuhiko Obayashi (House) that chronicles the end of a decade marked by the Japanese economic bubble and the brutal close of possibility in China.
Lonely, alienated Sonya struggles to keep her family-owned funeral home afloat. Until an unexpected corpse lands illicitly at her doorstep. A powerful meditation on our universal longing for connection, Dwein Baltazar's Ode to Nothing is one of the most captivating arthouse horror films to emerge from the Philippines.