Parallel Lives

A creator and a destructor – two lives, compared. In the main competition, we will today watch Ferrari by Michael Mann, starring an unrecognizable Adam Driver in the role of the car racing legend, and El Conde by Pablo Larraín, a grotesque horror variation on the difficult history of Chile, seeing Augusto Pinochet transforming into himself: a bloodthirsty vampire.
But keep an eye on Dogman too, it marks Luc Besson‘s return to his typical adrenaline-fueled and hyperbolic style with the portrayal of a marginalized man in tight and vengeful communication with his loyal dogs. The hard, cruel real world rears its end in Ibrahim Nash’at’s Hollywoodgate, an remarkable news story from inside the grim Taliban regime immediately following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. The difficulty of overcoming profound grief becomes evident in A cielo abierto (Horizons), a road trip along the Mexico-United States border, the debut work of Mariana and Santiago Arriaga.
The female universe, between metaphor and discovery: Stefanie Kolk’s Melk (Milk) is a parable on missed maternity, while Andres Peyrot’s Dieu est une femme is a portrait of French documentarist Pierre-Dominique Gaisseau.