Mother Vera (Cécile Embleton / Alys Tomlinson, 2024)

The legendary French director Robert Bresson had a profound relationship with spirituality that ran through his films, which often explored themes of redemption and hermeneutical struggle, all the while reflecting his Catholic upbringing and experiences as a prisoner of war.  Bresson's highly austere work conveyed a deep sense of faith and a near-pantheistic belief in the presence of God in nature; his singular cinematic style, which favoured minimalism and the use of non-professional actors, aimed to decode the mysteries behind quotidian life.  All of which feels very relevant when viewing the stark, ascetic documentary Mother Vera, which was mainly shot on the wintry outskirts of the Belarusian capital Minsk.

Mother Vera is a poignant, visually arresting work that follows the life of a young Orthodox nun, tracing her journey from a tumultuous past to an uncertain, if hopeful, future.  Cécile Embleton and Alys Tomlinson's stately film opens in the thick snow of a Belarusian forest, an icy monochrome setting that immediately nails down the tone for the story of seclusion and redemption that follows; soon, we are introduced to the remote monastery that houses the Vera of the title.  A former addict once known as Olga, Vera has a keen affinity for horses, a calling which will eventually take her far from brumal Belarus to the sun-kissed Camargue, the southern French region known for its eponymous, striking equine breed.

The directors have crafted a documentary that frequently feels like a piece of narrative cinema, one whose Bressonian pace allows the audience to immerse themselves in the depiction of cloistered life.  The decision to shoot primarily in black and white lends an oneiric quality to the film, although a jarring coda in colour comes close to breaking the spell cast by what's preceded it.  Mother Vera is not just about Vera's inner world—it also explores the community that played a crucial role in her rehabilitation, and delves into the wider themes of recovery and the search for meaning.  The cinematography (by Embleton) is particularly impressive, with the camera often training on details such as a horse's hooves.

These stunning, sensorial shots help deepen our understanding of Vera's place in her environment (Bresson's spiritual heir Bruno Dumont pulled off a similar feat in his startling debut feature The Life of Jesus).  The influence of classic Soviet cinema is very much in evidence here, with the film's visual language echoing that of Tarkovsky; languid scenes allow the imagery to seep into the viewer's consciousness, creating a rhythm that dictates the pace of the storytelling.  Mother Vera is a meditative exploration of both the mysteries of faith and the depths of the human condition; this haunting film manages to be at once probing and reticent as it challenges the viewer to evaluate their own place in the world.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI

Row (Matthew Losasso, 2025)

Matthew Losasso’s feature debut Row received its world premiere at the 2025 Raindance Film Festival, where it proceeded to win the award for Best UK Feature, a category that offered some stiff competition from the likes of White Guilt, Breakwater, The Lonely Musketeer, and festival opener Heavyweight.  Row is a psychological thriller, one that wouldn't have looked out of place in Raindance 2025's packed horror strand, which included other edge-of-your-seat fare such as Slovenian three-hander Hole, Argento homage Saturnalia, Pett Kata Shaw sequel Dui Shaw, and Australian horror-comedy Snatchers.

Row opens in medias res, with barely-alive Megan (Bella Dayne) washing up on an Orkney beach in the wake of a catastrophic attempt at rowing the Atlantic.  Megan appears to be the sole survivor of this ill-fated venture, and she's cared for in a makeshift hospital on Hoy as DCI MacKelly (Tam Dean Burn) asks her to recall what happened on the open seas.  Via a series of flashbacks, we learn of the fraught dynamic between the crew members, which, Megan aside, include Lexi (Sophie Skelton), Daniel (Akshay Khanna), and late addition Mike (co-writer Nick Skaugen), who is subbing for Lexi's injured boyfriend Adam (Mark Strepan).

Megan's memory appears to be hazy at best, and as time goes on it becomes clear that MacKelly's attempts to ascertain what happened between Newfoundland and Scotland are informed by the suspicion that Megan may be the author of this small-scale maritime disaster.  Dayne, who received a nomination for Best Performance in a UK Feature at Raindance—the prize went to The Lonely Musketeer's Edward Hogg—is good value as the quite inscrutable Megan, while Burn brings a welcome gravitas to his role and overcomes initial fears that he may have been slightly miscast as the grim-faced police detective.

Yet to focus on the scenes that take place around Megan's sickbed is to rather miss the point of Row, whose raison d'être is to showcase a series of exhilarating set-pieces featuring a tiny vessel at the mercy of the ocean.  Losasso taps into the brutal, unforgiving nature of offshore waters, creating a real sense of isolation as the seascape continually threatens to overwhelm these sailors—none of whom appear psychologically equipped for such an undertaking.  With a runtime of nearly two hours, the audacious Row is a taut, engrossing thriller, one whose clever structure and well-wrought action sequences belie its status as a debut feature.

Darren Arnold

Images: Raindance

Almayer's Folly (Chantal Akerman, 2011)

Almayer's Folly, directed by the late Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman and first released in 2011, is a highly atmospheric and contemplative film that examines, inter alia, the impact of colonialism.  Adapted from Joseph Conrad's eponymous debut novel, the film was Akerman's final narrative feature before her untimely death in 2015; during her lengthy career, Akerman made just one other literary adaptation, 2000's austere The Captive, which was loosely based on Marcel Proust's La Prisonnière.  Akerman took a similarly liberal approach when it came to translating Conrad to the screen, although Francis Ford Coppola's much-discussed Apocalypse Now remains an even more outré stab at the author's work.

Just as Coppola transposed Conrad's Heart of Darkness from the 19th-century Belgian Congo to 20th-century Vietnam, Akerman updates the author's 1895 novel to the 1950s.  Although shot in Cambodia, Akerman's film is set in Malaysia, where it follows the story of Dutch trader Almayer (Stanislas Merhar) and his mixed-race daughter Nina (Aurora Marion).  Almayer, trapped in a loveless marriage to local woman Zahira (Sakhna Oum), is clinging to fading hopes of finding gold deposits in the land that surrounds his riverside home (this building, as explained in the book, is the "folly" of the title).  Moreover, Zahira's adoptive father Lingard (Marc Barbé) is busy burning through the wealth earmarked for Almayer.

With all else failing, Almayer focuses on securing his daughter's future.  After some vague talk of a trip involving visits to Paris and London, Nina is packed off to a colonial boarding school, where it is hoped she will become more in tune with her European heritage; her absence only compounds Almayer's misery.  Merhar, who also starred in the aforementioned The Captive, delivers a well-judged performance as Almayer, capturing the title character's slide into madness as he struggles with both his flailing business and the painful separation from his cherished daughter; Belgian actress Marion brings a beguiling intensity to her role, perfectly embodying the dichotomy of a girl caught between two hugely contrasting worlds.

Almayer's Folly requires patience, and it takes some time for its brilliance to emerge; this demanding film is both elliptical and highly reflective of its director's formally rigorous methods.  Yet it is not inapt to suggest that Almayer's Folly would form a fine double bill with Apocalypse Now—whose redux version features Akerman favourite Aurore Clément—with Akerman's ice providing a counterpoint to Coppola's fire.  Conrad, whose works often hinge on what is left unsaid, proves an ideal fit for Chantal Akerman, with the economy of his storytelling neatly dovetailing with her languid, minimalist approach.  This late masterpiece from Akerman is an exemplary meditation on the death rattle of colonialism.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI