The pandemic has been a cause of great distress for the film industries around the world, including Hollywood, which is still grappling with Covid restrictions, limited theatre capacity and the formidable rise of the streaming platforms. Yet, 2021 has not been a total disappointment and the film industries are surely learning to tackle the ever-rising challenges of the pandemic.
As vaccine roll-out picks up pace around the world, here we present the best of what this year has to offer thus far -- from possession horrors to surveillance docu-dramas to the rarely well-crafted Hollywood musicals :
Shiva Baby
A young woman struggles to keep up different versions of herself when she runs into her sugar daddy and her ex-girlfriend at the Jewish funeral service, Shiva, with her parents.
There Is No Evil
The Iranian film presents four stories that are variations on the crucial themes of moral strength and the death penalty. “There Is No Evil” asks to what extent individual freedom can be expressed under a despotic regime and its seemingly inescapable threats.
Censor
After viewing a strangely familiar video nasty, Enid, a film censor, sets out to solve the past mystery of her sister's disappearance, embarking on a quest that dissolves the line between fiction and reality. The British film was directed and co-written by Prano Bailey-Bond.
Bad Trip
This mix of a scripted buddy comedy road movie and a real hidden camera prank show follows the outrageous misadventures of two buds stuck in a rut who embark on a cross-country road trip to NYC. The storyline sets up shocking real pranks by the outrageously hilarious Eric Andre.
Quo vadis, Aida?
Bosnia, July 1995. Aida is a translator for the UN in the small town of Srebrenica. When the Serbian army takes over the town, her family is among the thousands of citizens looking for shelter in the UN camp. As an insider to the negotiations, Aida has access to crucial information that she needs to interpret. What is on the horizon for her family and people - rescue or death? Which move should she take?
Saint Maud
Maud, a newly devout hospice nurse, becomes obsessed with saving her dying patient's soul -- but sinister forces, and her own sinful past, threaten to put an end to her holy calling.
About Endlessness
The film is a reflection on human life in all its beauty and cruelty, its splendor and banality. We wander, dreamlike, gently guided by our Scheherazade-esque narrator. Inconsequential moments take on the same significance as historical events: a couple floats over a war-torn Cologne; on the way to a birthday party, a father stops to tie his daughters shoelaces in the pouring rain; teenage girls dance outside a cafe; a defeated army marches to a prisoner-of-war camp. Simultaneously an ode and a lament, Roy Andersson’s latest film presents a kaleidoscope of all that is eternally human, an infinite story of the vulnerability of existence.
In the Heights
Lights up on Washington Heights...The scent of a cafecito caliente hangs in the air just outside of the 181st Street subway stop, where a kaleidoscope of dreams rallies this vibrant and tight-knit community. At the intersection of it all is the likeable, magnetic bodega owner Usnavi (Anthony Ramos), who saves every penny from his daily grind as he hopes, imagines and sings about a better life.
A film version of the Broadway musical in which Usnavi, a sympathetic New York bodega owner, saves every penny every day as he imagines and sings about a better life.
Zola
A stripper named Zola embarks on a wild road trip to Florida. Directed by Janicza Bravo, the dark comedy is adapted from a real-life viral Twitter thread by Aziah "Zola" King.
All Light, Everywhere
The documentary is an exploration of the shared histories of cameras, weapons, policing and justice. As surveillance technologies become a fixture in everyday life, the film interrogates the complexity of an objective point of view, probing the biases inherent in both human perception and the lens.