
ANTIDOTE

Other movies

LITTLE JAFFNA
Director: Lawrence Valin
“You’re not in Paris any more. You’re in Little Jaffna.” During the civil war in Sri Lanka that raged from 1983 until 2009, Tamils in the Parisian district of Little Jaffna were forced to contribute towards buying arms for Tamil Tigers. Aya, ostensibly a grocer, leads the ruthless extortion gang that bleeds the community dry. Michael, a straight-shooting young police officer with Tamil roots, is sent to infiltrate the organization but as he befriends the gang’s members at terrible risk to himself, he starts to see the issue in a more nuanced way and feels his loyalties shifting. Valin combines the theatricality of Tamil movies with the hard edge of new French cinema, using largely non-professional actors, in this spectacular thriller.

TO KILL A MONGOLIAN HORSE
Director: Xiaoxuan Jiang
Saina’s father never taught him to ride: he simply put him on the back of a horse, a Mongolian herdsman’s natural habitat. Saina now earns his living performing spectacular tricks in equestrian shows for tourists, trying to make enough money to cover his father’s gambling debts as well as support his little son. His true vocation, however, is caring for his sheep and horses on the grasslands that stretch as far as the eye can see - a way of life under threat from climate change, encroaching poverty and profiteering mining companies. A moving, superbly shot portrait of a man clinging to the things that make that life worthwhile: the endless sky, the silence, his herdsman’s heritage and his beloved horses.

AGORA
Director: Ala Eddine Slim
A blue dog and a black crow narrate the strange story of three revenants – people who are not quite dead, but not alive either – who resurge in a remote town, reviving the unsolved mysteries around their respective disappearances. Fathi, the local police inspector, is on the case, assisted by his friend Amine, the local doctor. What begins as a conventionally recognisable crime thriller, however, becomes more of a mood piece once Omar, a police investigator from the city, arrives to shine a light on what has happened and is overwhelmed by the irrationality of the chain of events. At once absurd and disturbing, Agora gradually reveals itself as both poetic fable and a political commentary on the state of Tunisia.