The latest releases
COMPARTMENT NO 6 (15, 108 mins)
Showing now in UK & Ireland selected cinemas
AN EXHAUSTING long-distance train journey to northern Russia provides the backdrop to burgeoning romance in Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen’s tender drama, based on Rosa Liksom’s novel of the same title.
Finnish archaeology student Laura (Seidi Haarla) is persuaded by her lecturer and lover to travel to Murmansk to view ancient petroglyphs as part of her education.
She boards a train and is shocked to discover that she will be sharing her carriage with a foulmouthed, misogynistic skinhead called Ljoha (Yuriy Borisov).
He is travelling to Murmansk to work down a mine and readily soaks his macho facade with alcohol.
A chance encounter between polar opposites in carriage number six kindles an attraction as Laura and Ljoha get to know each other and let their guards down.
Laura learns that her travelling companion is actually a shy and sensitive boy, who yearns for meaningful human connection just as deeply as her.
SMALL BODY
Showing now in UK & Ireland selected cinemas
(12A, 89 mins)
A DESPERATE woman embarks on a gruelling journey into the mountains in director Laura Samani’s debut feature.
In 1900, the Catholic Church decrees that any child who dies before they can be baptised must be condemned to the oblivion of limbo.
Agata (Celeste Cescutti) gives birth to a stillborn baby in her closeknit fishing village and is distraught at the thought that her little one will be nameless and forgotten. One of the superstitious locals tells her of a church in the north, where children can be magically brought back to life for a single breath — long enough for them to be baptised and recognised by the Church.
Agata’s husband (Denis Corbatto) is sceptical so she travels alone through the countryside with a wooden box containing her child’s body.
En route to an uncertain destination, the grief-stricken yet resilient mother witnesses poverty and hunger and she encounters duplicitous fellow travellers.
YOU ARE NOT MY MOTHER
(15, 93 mins)
Showing now in UK & Ireland cinemas and streaming on digital platforms
WRITER-DIRECTOR Kate Dolan plunders Irish folklore for a rather unsettling psychological thriller, which premiered at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival.
Teenager Char (Hazel Doupe) lives on a housing estate in north Dublin with her mother Angela (Carolyn Bracken), who is driven to her bed by depression.
Neglected at home and mercilessly bullied at school, Char craves stability and clashes frequently with her grandmother Rita (Ingrid Craigie).
When Angela disappears suddenly, Char fears the worst, but then her mother returns and is a markedly changed woman, apparently free of the suffocating darkness that used to render her unable to function.
Char becomes convinced that her custodian has been replaced by a doppelganger and she sets out to discover the harrowing truth about her family’s history.