VALLEY ROAD
Other movies
HANAMI
Director: Denise Fernandes
The remote volcanic island of Fogo, off the coast of Cape Verde, is a difficult place to make a living. Like many other young people, Nia chooses to go, leaving her new baby Nana to be raised by her grandmother. Nana is observant and sensitive; when she develops a high fever and is sent to recover with a healer under the volcano, she immediately responds to the magical atmosphere of the island’s interior. It is as if the island itself, along with the network of women who give the film a strong feminine energy, is caring for her. A moving story about longing and belonging, culminating in the older Nana’s quandary: should she stay here forever, or follow her mother into the wider world?
MOON
Director: Kurdwin Ayub
Sarah, a former mixed martial arts champion in Austria, knows she needs to make a new start. While her sister urges her to start a business, she jumps at an unexpected offer to go to Jordan to train three teenage daughters of a dazzlingly rich family living in an isolated, fiercely guarded mansion. Sarah soon sees that the girls don’t want to train, but have little else in their closeted lives: no internet allowed, no friends and only rare outings to the mall, where they are closely watched, for entertainment. The house, moreover, seems to hold its own secrets; why is Sarah forbidden to go upstairs? Director Ayub maintains the tension of a thriller in this story of life in a golden cage.
SABA
Director: Maksud Hossain
Saba, 25, lives in Dhaka with her demanding mother Shirin, a paraplegic whose frustrations and rage often find a target in the daughter who cares for her. When Shirin’s worsening condition requires surgery it falls to Saba to find the money to pay for it. Securing a job at a seedy Shisha bar, Saba befriends the manager Ankur and, for the first time, pictures what a life of her own could look like. Maksud Hossain’s debut feature is a close-up look at a complicated bond between mother and daughter that lurches between love and guilt, co-dependence and the longing for autonomy - but it is also a social drama, detailing the hardships that underlay the riots in Bangladesh earlier this year.
HOLES
Director: Abdulmohsen Aldhabaan
Rakan and his wife Rim are looking for an apartment to rent instead of living with his aged mother. It seems they have found the right spot, except for the hole in the wall that looks as if someone bashed it with a hammer. Rakan seems strangely unengaged, however, barely speaking to his wife. Gradually, as we slip from present to past, we piece together the story that explains his barrage of unwanted calls, chance encounters with shady characters and outbreaks of violence. When his mother’s home is burgled and she is attacked, he is confronted by the person he least wants to see.