And if Bella Baxter, on one of her journeys, discovered Cinobo too? Which movies would she choose? We respond with a watchlist for the enigmatic heroine where Terry Gilliam, David Lynch, and many other creators come together in an orgiastic pandemonium of dreamlike images and female empowerment

Poor Things: Bella Baxter’s Watchlist

Normal

In the spirit of small modern marvels of fantasy cinema such as "Let Me In" and "The Babadook", a surprise from Finland mixes coming-of-age films with body horror, in a "hatching" that gives birth to an exciting new directorial voice, that of Hanna Bergholm.

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A young gymnast that desperately tries to please her demanding mother, discovers a strange egg. She hides it and keeps it warm, but when the egg hatches, what emerges shocks everyone.

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Official Selection | Miami Film Festival | 2022
Official Selection | Cleveland International Film Festival | 2022

Hatching

Somewhere between mainstream and Festival-awarded cinema, the ever-unexpected Olivier Assayas ("Personal Shopper") directs Maggie Cheung as a fictional version of herself, in a delightful satire of French cinematography and a bold mix of genres that resists every convention and categorization.

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Director Rene Vidal's career is already in decline when he decides to shoot a remake of "Les Vampires". For the lead role of Irma Veep (which is an anagram of the word “vampire”) he hires the Hong Kong based actress Maggie Cheung who does not speak French at all. In the chaotic set, Maggie, who wears a latex suit similar to Katwoman's, is faced with conspiracy, supernatural egos and erotic downfalls. The project is one step away from complete chaos.

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KNF Award | Rotterdam International Film Festival | 1997

Irma Vep

The great David Lynch's first feature film, a black and white legend that has rightly remained for decades an enigmatic cinematic nightmare that happily eludes any logical explanation.

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A man in a post-apocalyptic industrial city. His perpetually angry girlfriend. Their horribly deformed baby who keeps screaming. The insanity within a black and white nightmarish space begins.

Eraserhead

Endless darkness swirls at the center of a dance company. Some will succumb to the nightmare. Others will –finally– wake up. A nightmarish and widely-discussed remake of Argento’s classic horror film, by “Call Me by Your Name” director Luca Guadagnino, starring Dakota Johnson and Tilda Swinton.

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Berlin, 1970s. Young American dancer, Susie Bannion arrives at the divided German capital to audition for the world-renowned “Helena Markos” dance company. She manages to impress the company’s famous choreographer, Madame Blanc. When Susie manages to snatch the lead part, her predecessor accuses the school’s female directors of witchcraft. As rehearsals become increasingly more demanding, Susie and Madame Blanc come closer. Susie did not join the company just to dance.

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Official Selection | Venice Film Festival | 2018
Best Special Effects | Venice Film Festival | 2018
Best Original Song | Venice Film Festival | 2018

Suspiria

A sweet embrace to an unknown world, the one that every young person must discover when coming out of their shell. A supernatural growth of the need for emancipation in one of the most beautiful European films of recent times.

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A shy young girl leaves her religious parents behind, in a small west coast town in Norway, in order to study at one of Oslo's universities. One day, while she is in the university library, she experiences an intense and unexpected seizure, which resembles those caused by epilepsy. Equally unexpected is the attraction she feels for a beautiful fellow student, which seems to respond to the magnetic presence of the lonely, strange provincial girl.

Thelma

Overturning all the clichés of period films, Marie Kreutzer makes a modern and unconventional film, where Vicky Krieps gives a masterful performance as Empress Sissi, disappearing inside the tight corset of self-restraint and social criticism of the intertemporal patriarchy.

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On Christmas 1877, Sissi celebrates her 40th birthday. As the First Lady of Austria and wife of the emperor, she is not allowed to express herself and must remain the beautiful young empress forever. To meet these expectations, she follows a strict program of fasting, exercise, combing her hair and measuring her waistline daily. Stifled by these conventions, hungry for knowledge and life, Sissi rebels more and more against this image.

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Best Performance - Un Certain Regard (Vicky Krieps) | Cannes Film Festival | 2022
Best Actress (Vicki Krieps) | Sarajevo Film Festival | 2022
Best Film | London Film Festival | 2022

Corsage

The impressive alt-history psychoanalytic sci-fi thriller by The Boy imagines Greece’s modern political history in a different way: Through a handmade, crimson universe, somewhere between giallo, erotica and sci-fi, starring Sofia Kokkali in a jaw-dropping one-woman show.

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Niki's devotion to the resistance gives away her inability to respond as a mother. Lefteris, Niki’s son, inherits a past that he himself never dreamed of. Until one day, the thread that connects them, an invisible psychological umbilical cord, is severed. The Mother's struggle for her political beliefs is transformed into psychological chains that imprison the Son, who must ultimately fight for his own freedom and seek his own redemption.

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Iris Award for Best Leading Actress | Hellenic Film Academy | 2017