24 HOURS WITH GASPAR
Director: Yosep Anggi Noen
An action-packed martial arts adventure set in a steampunk futuristic version of Indonesia in 2032 that will put you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. When Gaspar's (Reza Rahadian) artificial heart starts malfunctioning, he is given 24 hours to live. That's just enough time for him to put together a team of assassins (Shenina Cinnamon and Laura Basuki on top form) to help him investigate a mass slaughter case involving the government. Along the way, he encounters an informant who hints that everything ties into the long-ago disappearance of Gaspar's childhood friend Kirana at the hands of a human-trafficking crook.
Director Yosep Anggi Noen puts the audience through its paces in this visually stunning thriller.
FRESH KILLS
Director: Jennifer Esposito
When the Larusso family moves from Brooklyn to Staten Island, mother Francine (played by the director) hopes they will be far enough from the city’s criminal networks to forget about how her husband finances their luxe lifestyle. But business is all about family in the Mafia, which leaves unhappy youngest daughter Rose (Emily Bader) in a quandary: if she breaks free from the Mob, will she make enemies out of her mother and sister, both mob wives but also the people closest to her? Original and emotionally complex, this is a story about the people ignored or sidelined in almost all the mafia movies ever made: the women born, raised and married to a world they are not allowed to leave.
HESITATION WOUND
Director: Selman Nacar
Criminal lawyer Canan (an excellent Tulin Ozen) faces the last day of a murder trial in which she is defending a factory worker accused of killing his boss; her client’s scar is the “hesitation wound” of the title. As usual, she has spent the night by her comatose mother’s hospital bed, but she is never less than elegant, incisive and in control, even as a key witness goes missing and the courtroom’s ceiling plaster starts falling down during her closing speech. Her sister argues they should let their mother die, but Canan can’t just let go of anything. A remarkable portrait of a woman dealing with the failing Turkish legal system while facing her own demons and decisions.
THE UNIVERSAL THEORY
Director: Timm Kröger
A congress for theoretical physicists in the snow-covered Swiss Alps is the spectacular setting for this truly extraordinary film, which plays with the idea of the multiverse and the infinite possibilities it suggests. Doctoral student Johannes (Jan Bulow) arrives with his disagreeable supervisor, expecting to hear an eminent Iranian scientist talk about his theory of quantum mechanics. But the keynote speaker doesn’t show up, another scientist is murdered, strange and apparently poisonous clouds billow overhead and, most mysteriously of all, there are ominous roars coming from tunnels rumoured to run under the mountains. Meanwhile, Johannes is falling for the hotel’s enigmatic pianist (Olivia Ross) who seems to know things about him he hasn’t told anyone – not in this universe, anyway.