Films in First Feature Competition
The Sutherland Award recognises the most original and imaginative directorial debut.
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Atlantics
Dir Mati Diop | France-Senegal-Belgium
Director and actor Mati Diop (35 Shots of Rum) delivers a hypnotic, genre-shifting portrait of a girl’s awakening.
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Babyteeth
Dir Shannon Murphy | Australia
This feverish Australian drama about falling in love for the first time features a super performance by Sharp Objects breakout star Eliza Scanlen.
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Calm with Horses
Dir Nick Rowland | UK-Ireland
Cosmo Jarvis (Lady Macbeth) gives a visceral performance as the hired muscle for a crime family in rural Ireland.
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House of Hummingbird
Dir-Scr Bora Kim | South Korea-USA
Announcing a bright new voice in South Korean cinema, Bora Kim brings us this absorbing coming-of-age drama about a dysfunctional Seoul family circa 1994.
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Instinct
Dir Halina Reijn | Netherlands
Carice van Houten flirts with danger in this confrontational interrogation of desire and consent.
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The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Dir Joe Talbot | USA
Director Joe Talbot and writer-performer Jimmie Fails create a gorgeous, inventive meditation on art, architecture, black culture and gentrification in California’s Bay Area.
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Make Up
Dir-Scr Claire Oakley | UK
The debut feature from acclaimed short filmmaker Claire Oakley is a riveting psycho-sexual drama in which nothing is quite what it seems.
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Relativity
Dir Mariko Minoguchi | Germany
In her ambitious debut, Mariko Minoguchi shifts seamlessly between déjà vu psychodrama, romantic weepie and punchy thriller, constantly playing with the notion of destiny versus chance.
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Scales
Dir-Scr Shahad Ameen | Saudi Arabia-United Arab Emirates-Iraq
The story of a fishing village in thrall to mysterious sea creatures makes for a spellbinding feature debut from Shahad Ameen.
