Category Archives: 2025

The Virgin of the Quarry Lake

The Virgin of the Quarry Lake 3 suns

Set near Buenos Aires, Argentina, The Virgin of the Quarry Lake is a coming of age story about a teenage girl around 2001. Only there is something special about Natalia. The actress, Dolores Oliverio, who plays the lead role is easily the best part of the movie. She has an intensity in her eyes that tells you something major is about to happen. Natalia lives with her grandmother, her parents having abandoned her when she was small. She spends her time with her friends and sending messages at the internet cafe. This summer she has her eye on Diego, a handsome boy the group hangs out with. So Natalia is trying to grow up fast, and look more like a woman. The problem is there another older woman, Silvia who is close to Diego which displeases her. A confrontation is inevitable. The setting of the movie gives it a dark tone. A homeless man is beaten early in the film with his cart dripping blood for a long time. In fact, there is a lot done with blood in the movie, providing ominous signs. There are frequent power failures, water shortages and looting going on so you get the feeling things are falling apart. But there is a remote lake in an old quarry where the youngsters can get away from their problems and go swimming. But then there are those frightening stories about the place that could be a sign of what is to come. This is a dark movie that falls short of being a full blown horror movie, but being about teenage girls by itself could classify as horror enough. The story is slow to develop and could use more development of some of the characters. The movie was not one of the best of the festival, but was also not among the worst. The movie is based on short stories from Argentina. The director was present and talked of the time period and setting off the movie and the challenges that it created.

GEN_

GEN_ 4 suns

This documentary from Italy deals with the medical challenges faced by two groups of people, both of which experience opposition in today’s charged political environment. We go inside the clinic of a special doctor, Dr. Maurizio Bini in Milan as he consults with his many patients. He overseers aspiring parents trying to conceive by in vitro fertilization and the treatment of individuals who are transitioning to the gender they identify with. He does this while also dealing with the constraints of a conservative government at a time when the demand for his services is high. The filmmakers filmed his sessions with his patients as he learns of their situations and recommends treatments. He has a personal approach with each individual and acts as a psychiatrist getting to their mental state as well. Health care is provided by the government in Italy so his services are free. This leads to a real variety of patients who come from all cultures and ethnicities. His practice requires him to be familiar not only with Italian law but also the laws of many foreign countries. And he speaks to his patients in several foreign languages. He even has one patient who is in prison seeking to change their gender. Some of his decisions are not consistent with government policies so he has to bend the rules on occasion. The movie shows us that these issues that may seem abstract are things that medical professionals with heavy scientific backgrounds deal with regularly. At the Q & A Dr. Bini appeared personally to the rather small audience and was delightful in answering questions about his work.

The Perfect Neighbor

The Perfect Neighbor 3 suns

In the U.S. Documentary category comes a documentary dealing with a subject that plagues America; that is, the proliferation of guns and the violence inflicted on our neighborhoods. In particular, is the use of Stand Your Ground laws that excuses the use of guns to settle disputes. Everyone remembers the 2023 case in Marion County, Florida of a young black mother being shot to death by her neighbor, an older white woman. The neighbor shot her through her own locked door as the mother was responding to the way her children were being treated by the woman as they played in the open lot next door. The filmmakers tell the entire story using police bodycam footage of their many interactions with the woman and the neighbors over a period of many months. The woman made numerous calls to the police to report the noisy children and the police had many responses and meetings with her. We get to see how the situation went on and on until it finally escalated in the death of Ajike Owens, the young mother. The movie is painful to watch as the dangers go unrecognized and especially upon seeing the reactions of the family when they realize that Ajike is gone. At the end a graphic explains how the passage of Stand Your Ground laws has led to an increase in gun deaths in the states where they were enacted. While it is a compelling story, the use of the police footage almost exclusively does get to be repetitive. After the film, the filmmakers and friends and family of Ajike were present for Q & A. The director, Geeta Gandbhir is a renowned filmmaker who also happened to be friends with the affected family. She almost immediately sought to document the event after the tragedy happened. The presence of the friends and Ajike’s mother at the showing emphasized just how real these events are and how devastating it is to the family. Four small children are now left without a mother because of the thoughtless actions of one individual. The film ends showing that the shooter was sentenced to 25 years for her crime.

Prime Minister

Prime Minister 5 suns

Prime Minister is an engaging documentary in the World Cinema Documentary category, from New Zealand covering the five years of the administration of the country’s first woman prime minister, Jacinda Ardern. She was filmed from just before she became leader of the Labour Party in 2017 up to her departure in 2023. The filmmakers had access to her personal life,  filming her and her partner at home as well as in her office.  The film begins and ends with connections to America as she makes visits to Harvard University inferring she has a message for Americans. Her service was quite revolutionary as she was not married to her partner and she was pregnant as she was about to take office. She expressed how she was actually more afraid of winning the office than losing.  We see how things can rapidly change for elected officials and the same is true for Ardern. She came in planning to deal with climate change and abortion rights.  But during her time in office, the mass shooting at a mosque happened, forcing the country to deal with automatic weapons and hate.  New Zealand responded with a ban on such weapons.  Then there was the eruption of a volcano killing many.  Finally,  came Covid in 2020 and the government response.  New Zealand had the distinction of enforcing a shutdown that successfully eradicated the virus from the country and Ardern played a large role in this effort.  We also see the right wing response from those who believed the conspiracy theories and objected to the Covid vaccine. These were the same beliefs of the vaccine causing the deaths that we saw in America. It was refreshing to see how she redefined leadership in a modern country while at the same time dealing with the pressures of being a mother.  America could learn a lot by paying attention to this model. Be sure to look for this movie.

The Ugly Stepsister

The Ugly Stepsister 4 1/2 suns

The Ugly Stepsister (from Norway) takes the fairy tale Cinderella and turns it upside down and inside out making it a body horror movie about envy and body image.  In this take of the classic we see things from the point of view of Cinderella’s stepsister, Elvira who is on a mission to get the attention of the kingdom’s prince at the ball and marry him and save the family from poverty. The problem is that she is rather homely and fat. That won`t do so with her mother’s help, a doctor’s facial modifications, a finishing school and an internal parasite, she sets on a scheme to make herself beautiful. Oh, and there is also the little problem of that attractive annoying stepsister that must be dealt with.  I had never heard before that there was so much sex and baudy language in this classic story.  I guess I must have missed something.  The actress playing Elvira really goes through a range of emotions going from a naive yiung girl to a monster who will do whatever it takes to reach her goal.  The body mutilations become more and more extreme as she seeks to become attractive and meet the world’s expectations of female beauty. There were many exclamations from the audience during each cringeworthy step. It all culminates with the fitting of the slipper and the removal of the “parasite”. The theme is on par with last year’s “The Substance” though maybe not to that extreme.  It’s all about how society sees women as objects,  judging them by some impossible standard and how some women seek to meet them.  And for fans of horror genre it’s a lot of fun.

LUZ

LUZ 5 suns

This international drama deals with estranged family and loss and efforts to heal, covering two different families who are a world apart. There is an element of technology in the form of virtual reality that links the two stories together. The first is set in the Chinese city of Chongqing about an older former gangster who has lost touch with his grown daughter who now makes a living streaming on the internet. In the second story a woman in Hong Kong travels to Paris to be with her stepmother whose health has started to fail. The stepmother is played by Isabelle Hubert who unfortunately couldn’t be at Sundance! The two stories are connected by a painting of a deer in the woods painted by the young woman’s deceased father and is now in a night club connected to the ex-gangster. Both individuals are drawn to a world in virtual reality called LUZ where the players interact and search for the mystical deer in the painting. There they meet and try to find answers to what they are searching for. The stories share themes of brokenness and healing between family members. At the Q & A writer/ director Flora Lau talked of the long process in making the movie and the iterations it went through. There were rewrites even after filming started where she made it less about the virtual world in favor of the family stories. I’d say it was a successful decision. The audience loved it. This movie is in both Chinese and French. Isabelle Hubert appeared in a recorded message greeting Sundance before the film. Wish she could have been there!