
YALLA PARKOUR
SHOWTIME

Other movies

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.

BIN U BIN, ELSEWHERE THE BORDER
Director: Mohamed Lakhdar Tati
In the rocky desert Algerian border country, Fethi and his fellow villagers eke out a living smuggling goods – mostly petrol – into Tunisia, working at night and paying off the local crime lords. Saad, a film-maker trying to raise money to finish his movie, has worked for a year with Fethi. He lives in his family’s shed, included as part of a loving household as well as their risky business. At the same time he is obviously an outsider: smartly dressed and prepared to talk back to anyone, including the imam. Tough, gritty but also moodily atmospheric, its tension sustained by a tumultuous soundscape, theis remarkable film delves deeply into the complexities of family, friendship and daily survival.

MARIA
Director: Pablo Larraín
Maria Callas, the greatest opera singer the world has seen, died aged only 53 in her sumptuous Parisian apartment, discovered by the devoted servants who had spent their days hiding her pills and trying to persuade her to eat. She had not sung in public for years. Larrain’s swirling work of fantasy shows La Callas remembering - or hallucinating - performances from her past, her long affair with Aristotle Onassis and her loveless childhood in wartime Athens, where she sang for German soldiers. Wandering Paris in her last days, Maria is trailed by an imaginary journalist to whom she tries to explain the pain and effort of creation. Angelina Jolie conveys Callas’s grandeur and her inner tumult in a landmark performance.