The Helsinki International Film Festival, or Love and Anarchy, is back. This year, the lineup comes packed with Cannes favorites and indie darlings, each worth your time. While the program and speaking events also provide an uncomfortable and unwelcome emphasis on the acceptance of AI in filmmaking, the movies themselves are nothing to scoff at. Happily, the selection proves a panacea to these depressing realities with biting satire and deeply humane stories that captivate and inspire in equal measure.
Here are the films you shouldn’t miss at the festival this year.
Emilia Perez
My favorite film from Cannes. A miracle in and of itself: Emilia Perez is the story of transitioning, forgiveness, and cartel violence, told as a musical. It’s directed by French visionary Jacques Audiard, and stars Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, and Selena Gomez in the leads. As the trio of women drifts apart and together again, we witness how Mexico changes throughout the years, and how the cycle of violence adapts to relive anew. Like every musical, the characters sing when they cannot speak, and dance when they can’t sing. In a world that robs women of their agency at every turn, that is often and with fierce intensity.
Every element of Emilia Perez defies expectation and definition. It is audacious, superlative, and beautiful. The kind of moviegoing experience that makes the soul dance and reaffirms our love for the art form.
Tickets and more at HIFF here.
Anora
Anora is another Cannes favorite, which took the festival by storm this year. Sean Baker, director of The Florida Project, tackles wealth inequality, sex work, and the social contract in this subversive but ultimately hopeful anti-romantic comedy. After the son of a Russian oligarch falls in love with a stripper, his parents set out to prevent their future together. It’s part fantasy, part scathing satire, and entirely intoxicating, as Baker deftly toys with audience expectations.
Tickets and more at HIFF here.
Megalopolis
Everyone knows about Megalopolis, or at least the dream of it. Francis Ford Coppola’s great unfinished masterpiece — or his greatest vanity project — this is a film that’s already an event before it completed filming. The final product might not set the world on fire, but it’s never boring. At Cannes, people booed and applauded it in equal measure. It divided the conversation for weeks. You either loved it or hated it, no middle ground was possible.
In the months since, I’ve grown to love it. At first, it baffled me. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Yet, I can’t deny the artistry and vision behind it. This is a passion project, and like all passion projects, it comes with certain baggage. The director puts themselves in front of the camera and bears their soul. It’s uncomfortable and deeply intimate. We should consider ourselves lucky for directors like Coppola, who have the capacity for such humane and surprising acts of filmmaking.
Tickets and more at HIFF here.
Ghost Trail
Jonathan Millet’s intense and immensely humane thriller grew from his history as a documentarian in countries ravaged by war. As a result, his feature debut speaks eloquently and fiercely on topics of revenge, forgiveness, and how the western world increasingly turns its back on those in need of help.
Led by a towering performance by Adam Bessa, Ghost Trail is one part Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, another Steven Spielberg’s Munich. It lives up to its comparisons and then some. This is a remarkably mature, balanced, and thoughtful film. One that forces us to think beyond the confines of its limited story. As we watch Bessa’s traumatized refugee seek his former torturers, Millet weaves a tapestry of neglect and inhumanity that wears a familiar face. In the end, it is our complacency that proves the greatest threat of all.
Tickets and more at HIFF here.
The Substance
Hysterically funny and devastating, The Substance is a body horror film that would make David Cronenberg giddy. With a career best performance from Demi Moore as an aging fitness guru, whose TV show gets replaced by a younger model, The Substance skewers topics of body dysmorphia, sexism, and the toxic effect of beauty standards. It’s a gleefully violent and twisted story, full of nods to early Peter Jackson films, but one that never loses sight of empathy. Director Coralie Fargeat asks us that in between the laughter and gasps, we consider how much better this world would be if we could just be kinder. Not just to each other, but to ourselves.
Tickets and more at HIFF here.
The Seed of a Sacred Fig
Another big Cannes winner, Mohammad Rasoulof’s suspenseful drama is a bold attack on Iranian politics and class division. At almost three hours in length, The Seed of a Sacred Fig is in no hurry to make a point, but I defy anyone to call it slow or dull. It is so angry, and so eloquent in that anger, that every minute proves riveting.
Set against the protests in 2022, Rasoulof’s film examines the broken caste systems, politics, and theocratic lies of Iranian society with an unflinching gaze. It’s the kind of film that is important without becoming pompous. A searing look beyond the curtain, one that expands beyond the borders of its native country, and raises a mirror on everyone who looks at it.
Tickets and more at HIFF here.
The Second Act
Quentin Dupieux is kind of a troll, and I love him for it. His films are shaggy dog stories, and he loves to toy with his audience. Such it is with The Second Act, a film that’s so defiantly against expectations that it nearly pushes the audience away entirely. My first instinct was to dismiss it, then, after a second viewing, I couldn’t shake it.
This is a satire about making movies. But it’s also a withering attack on mediocrity, and those who would push algorithms into human endeavors. Peppered with an impeccable cast, it’s a film that is both fast and slow, with much to say and nothing at all. Most importantly, it is a portrait of an artist that is deeply human.
Tickets and more at HIFF here.
Love Lies Bleeding
Every winner is a loser who got lucky. Nowhere is that as clear as in Love Lies Bleeding, a film about control and how rarely we have it. Think of it as a mix between David Lynch and The Coen Brothers, and you’re in the right ballpark. But Love Lies Bleeding isn’t content with mere imitation. This is a strong second feature from Rose Glass, a grimy and seedy neo-noir that proves surprisingly tender in between the violence.
Carried by superb performances from Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian, Love Lies Bleeding uses convention to subvert expectation. It both a heartland rock ballad and a warning against poisonous dreams. Like Bruce Springsteen’s music, it measures the distance between American dream and American reality, and finds the gulf between them growing wider by the minute.
Tickets and more at HIFF here.
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
A body lies in the middle of the road, and Shula is the first one to find it. She’s on her way to a party and, for a moment, we’re not sure if she’ll do anything about the corpse. It belongs to her uncle, a man everyone claims to love, but one they know to have been a monster. As Shula’s family sets to bury and mourn the dead, the past deeds and unspoken secrets of Zambian family life erupt in volcanic bursts of anger and desperation.
Director Rungano Nyoni’s devastating drama could happen anywhere. Silence is not exclusive to any culture. But this story is poignantly Zambian. It delicately serves witness to cultural norms, both understandable and baffling, and speaks to how it feels to be a stranger in your homeland. This is an eloquent, heart-wrenching film that refuses easy answers or melodrama. It understands the power of anger, but even more so the power of letting go — and when that is even possible. I can’t say it’s fun to watch, but it is vital viewing, and a strong case for Nyoni as a director to keep an eye on.
Tickets and more at HIFF here.
I only ever hear good stuff about Love Lies Bleeding, including your review. I’m very intrigued!