April (15)

★★★★ Shocking violence is tempered by strange, silent sequences in the much-admired Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili's sophomore feature about an obstetrician under investigation, which has echoes of The Piano Teacher. ~ The Guardian.

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Dea Kulumbegashvili's highly anticipated second feature won the Special Jury Prize at Venice Film Festival and reunites Kulumbegashvili with key collaborators from her debut feature Beginning (2020), including award-winning actors Ia Sukhitashvili and Kakha Kintsurashvili.

Nina is a skilled obstetrician at a maternity hospital in Eastern Georgia. After a tragedy strikes in the delivery room, the grief-stricken father demands an inquiry into her methods.

The resulting scrutiny threatens to bring to light Nina’s other, secret job – driving, through the stunningly beautiful countryside, to the village homes of pregnant girls and women to provide unsanctioned abortions – and to destroy the work that is the only source of meaning in her life.

The producers include Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name, Challengers), with renowned cinematographer Arseni Khachaturan (Bones and All) and British experimental composer Matthew Herbert (The Wonder, Starve Acre) bringing their distinctive talents to the film.

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★★★★ Eerily elusive, superbly acted and crafted, it is one of those rare films with just as tight a grasp on form as it has on substance. ~ Little White Lies.