Autumn Leaves: Films for Fall Days

From Academy Award-winning writer and director Adam Elliott ("Mary and Max"), another 100% handmade claymation that spotlights a life in a shell, drenched in bleak humor and moments of pure, honest emotion. A little masterpiece. — Grace is a lonely woman who loves books, collects snails and faces a series of misfortunes when she is separated from her twin brother. Despite her difficulties, she finds inspiration and hope again when she begins a friendship with an eccentric older woman named Pinkie. — Best Film | Annecy Film Festival | 2024 Best FIlm | London Film Festival | 2024

An appreciative, festival-friendly addition to Woody Allen's "european films", set this time in the enchanting San Sebastián and its local film festival, which serves as a breeding ground for humorous stories arising from the anxieties and neuroses of its protagonists. — Intellectual Mort Rifkin accompanies his wife Sue to Spain's prestigious San Sebastian Film Festival, worried about her falling out with young director Philippe. While Sue is passionately involved with the charming Philippe, Mort meets the sweet Dr. Rojas and something inside him changes. A mood to review life through the power of classic cinema rekindles Mort's hope for the future.

One of the most talented representatives of the new generation of Chinese directors, Shujun Wei, impresses with his third feature film, a sophisticated crime drama that intertwines film noir with existential exploration, in the best tradition of the Asian school of the genre. — A young police officer takes on the investigation of a series of murders that have shocked public opinion in China. Under pressure from his superiors, he reaches the long-awaited arrest. However, could the real culprit still be at large? — Official Selection - Un Certain Regard | Cannes Film Festival | 2023

Six years after announcing his retirement, Aki Kaurismäki came back with the fourth part of his trilogy and won the Jury Prize at Cannes. It’s a love story for people the world usually forgets: she can’t escape news of the war on the radio, he drinks on a building site, and they meet at karaoke. — Ansa stacks shelves in a supermarket in present-day Helsinki until she’s sacked over a sandwich past its sell-by date. Holappa works on a building site and drinks. They meet one night in a karaoke bar, but before they’ve had a chance to swap names, he’s lost her phone number. — Jury Prize | Cannes Film Festival | 2023 FIPRESCI Prize | San Sebastian Film Festival | 2023

Joe Wright’s first feature, with Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen, is the liveliest take on Jane Austen’s beloved novel and never left the culture. Elizabeth Bennet is the second of five daughters in a house with no son and no money, and at a ball a rich, silent man called Darcy insults her. — There are hens in the kitchen of the Bennets’ house in the English countryside, five daughters and no son, and nothing to give any of the girls as a dowry. Elizabeth, the second eldest, is the only one who won’t treat marriage as a transaction. She is also the one the wealthy Mr Darcy insults at a country ball. — Most Promising Newcomer (Joe Wright) | BAFTA Awards | 2006 Nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Keira Knightley) | Oscars | 2006 Nomination for Best Original Score | Oscars | 2006 Nomination for Best Achievement in Costume Design | Oscars | 2006

Jean-Pierre Melville’s Resistance fighters know they will soon be dead, and they go towards it without heroics or speeches. French critics dismissed the film as Gaullist propaganda in 1969, but today it counts among the most important French war films ever made. — In France in 1942, someone hands Philippe Gerbier’s name to the Germans, and the engineer ends up in a camp. Once he escapes, his world shrinks to forged papers, safe houses and comrades who will never know each other’s real names. And he sets out to find the person who gave him away.

In the spirit of Linklater's Before trilogy and with DIY attitude, the Greek film of the year follows two people on a magically melancholic journey. Awards in Thessaloniki and a triumph at the Hellenic Film Academy Awards for the directorial debut of comic book creator Giorgos Goussis. — Elena is traveling with no destination and unexpectedly boards the ship to Kefalonia. Antonis, who is on the same ship, is heading to the island's cemetery to bury his aunt's ossuary. When his car breaks down, Elena offers to take him to a hotel and then again the next day to the cemetery, where they are told they can't keep the box for bureaucratic reasons. Having enjoyed each other's company, they decide to continue roaming around the island looking for a good place to bury the box. — Golden Alexander | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 2021 FIPRESCI Award | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 2021 Greek National Television Award | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 2021 Best Film | Hellenic Film Academy Awards | 2022 Best Actress (Elena Topalidou) | Hellenic Film Academy Awards | 2022

Alan Parker’s 90s crowd-pleaser is a musical with a working-class heart, plenty of charm and humour, and a soundtrack people still play today. Glen Hansard, who plays its guitarist, had been busking on the streets of Dublin since he was a teenager, and sixteen years later he was cast in “Once”. — Unemployment is rife on Dublin’s Northside when Jimmy Rabbitte decides that what the city really needs is a soul band, and that he’s the man to manage it. He puts an ad in a music paper and half the neighbourhood turns up to answer it. Not one of them has ever played soul in their life. — Nominated for Best Film Editing | Oscars | 1992 Best Film | BAFTA Awards | 1992 Best Adapted Screenplay | BAFTA Awards | 1992 Best Editing | BAFTA Awards | 1992 Best Direction | BAFTA Awards | 1992 Best Director | Tokyo IFF | 1991

Tomas Alfredson (“Let the Right One In”) took a novel by John le Carré, a former British intelligence officer, and built a maze of Cold War corridors out of it, earning three Oscar nominations along the way. Gary Oldman searches them for a Soviet mole, and he never once raises his voice. — George Smiley has been quietly pushed out of British intelligence in early-1970s London and told that his career is over. Now he’s back, unofficially, to find a Soviet mole at the very top of the service. The trouble is that everyone he has to investigate has worked alongside him for thirty years. — Nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay | Oscars | 2012 Nomination for Best Leading Actor (Gary Oldman) | Oscars | 2012 Best Adapted Screenplay | BAFTA | 2012 Best British Film | BAFTA | 2012

Censorship in the 1950s kept Douglas Sirk from making this melodrama, so Todd Haynes (“Carol”) made it instead, saying out loud and in colour everything Sirk could only hint at. It’s the role that defined Julianne Moore’s career. — Cathy Whitaker has a house, a husband, children and the respect of every neighbour on her street in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1957. One evening she walks in on her husband, Frank, with another man, and the only person she can still talk to is Raymond, her gardener. The whole town is watching them. — Nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Julianne Moore) | Oscars | 2003 Nominated for Best Original Screenplay | Oscars | 2003 Best Actress (Julianne Moore) | Venice Film Festival | 2002 SIGNIS Award - Honorable Mention | Venice Film Festival | 2002