Below are Maureen’s SELECTS:
One of my favorite directors. This was the first Aki Kaurismäki film I watched, and I just had to watch his entire filmography afterward. His dry, minimalist tone, as well as his Hopper-esque universes, completely fascinated me.
A beautiful blend of fiction and documentary, blurring the boundaries between staged narratives and the memories of real people.
Claire Denis + Agnès Godard: pure respect.
I’ve watched many films at festivals, but this one really stuck with me. It reminded me of Ozu’s films, but with those everyday anxieties of middle-class life.
One of the strongest voices in Argentine cinema. I just love how she uses depth, bodies within the frame, and off-screen space in this film to create a world that feels oppressive and almost physically uncomfortable.
I’m always captivated by the way Apichatpong moves between reality, dreams, memory, and spirituality. As a bonus, the six reels of ‘Uncle Boonmee’ are shot in six different cinematographic styles and genres: one section plays like a slow ethnographic documentary, another like a classic costume drama, another like a cheesy 1970s Thai ghost movie, and another like a modern ambient art piece.
You can feel Miguel Gomes’s ‘Tabu’ somewhere in the DNA of the film, but here the jungle isn’t just a setting; it feels like a character.
This couldn’t have been a better introduction to Hong Sang-soo. The differences between the two halves of this bifurcated structure are so small, yet so significant. The feeling that nothing is scripted and that everything is happening for the first time actually comes from a highly specific directing method that Hong Sang-soo uses on all his sets.
Captivating in its rawness and poetry. There’s a beautiful spontaneity to the images. I absolutely love the mix of 16mm and 35mm.
