MARIA

Other movies
THE FINALE
Director: Rodolphe Chedid
In a secluded Lebanese village, Amal and Naeem, married for 50 years, find their peaceful life marked by the absence of their children, who left during the war more than three decades ago. Feeling a profound void, Amal seeks to rekindle their connection and rediscover meaning by asking Naeem to write their life story. He reluctantly agrees, and they embark on an intimate journey through forgotten memories and unspoken truths. As they revisit their past, they confront the love they’ve built and the questions that have shaped their lives. Filmed with a unique and original cinematic language, this love story is a powerful testament to how film can beautifully convey emotions, memories and the intimate details that make life extraordinary.
ROSE OF NEVADA
Director: Mark Jenkin
Rose Of Nevada is eerie, poignant and the tides are treacherous in this mysterious, daring work. Having brought Enys Men to Red Sea Film Festival in 2022, Mark Jenkin returns with his unique vision in this trenchant time-travelling tale of eternal loss. Two of the UK’s most exciting young actors, George MacKay and Callum Turner, headline this story initially set in a forgotten Cornish fishing village. Nick (MacKay) is trying to fix the roof over his head when he signs up as crew on a mysterious trawler called Rose of Nevada. Liam (Turner) is the stranger who drifts into town and ends up on board. All however, is not as it seems.
TWO SEASONS, TWO STRANGERS
Director: Sho Miyake
Adapted from Yoshiharu Tsuge’s manga short stories from the 1960s, Two Seasons, Two Strangers follows Li (Shim Eun-kyung), a creatively blocked Korean screenwriter adrift in Japan. As she imagines a bittersweet seaside tale of two lonely youths crossing paths, a film-within-a-film unfolds onscreen and we realise her own emotional journey is mirroring theirs. Months later, in a snowy mountain village, Li finds connection with a solitary innkeeper, and slowly reclaims her voice, rediscovering purpose and the beauty of the understated. Filmmaker Sho Miyake distills transformation into its quietest form, where meaning clings to the ordinary and unravels in near-silence. The film explores relationships born of chance — not romance or friendship, but something softer, stranger and just as essential.
LOST LAND
Director: Akio Fujimoto
In this quietly powerful, first-ever Rohingya-language feature, Japanese filmmaker Akio Fujimoto offers a haunting, intimate portrait of two siblings fleeing persecution in Myanmar. With nothing but vague directions and each other, nine-year-old Somira and her younger brother Shafi begin a harrowing journey to join an uncle in Malaysia, crossing borders by sea and land and navigating a world shaped by smugglers, fear and exploitation. With a cast of non-professional actors, most of whom lived refugee experiences, the film blends realism with lyrical restraint. Eschewing melodrama for quiet observation, Fujimoto captures the disorientation of displacement and the uncertainty of fragile hopes. Lost Land is a timely, deeply human reflection on survival, resilience and the Rohingya’s eternal search for a place to call home.