Marianne Jean-Baptiste delivers a career-best performance as Pansy, a woman battling grief, rage, and disconnection in Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, three decades after their collaboration on Secrets and Lies. 

When a self-proclaimed artistic dancer who goes by the stage name of Carmen (TAKAMINE Hideko) returns to her rural hometown, her behaviour and dress sense soon cause confusion and upset. This light-hearted comedy marks Japan’s first ever full-colour feature, humorously depicting shifts in post-war moral standards.

Hard-working, well-dressed, and caring, housewife Momoko (EGUCHI Noriko) seems an ideal daughter-in-law, but she is growing frustrated by her mother-in-law’s (FUBUKI Jun) intrusions, her untidy neighbours, and her husband’s (KOIZUMI Kotaro) indifference. When she discovers his affair, she is finally driven to madness.

Shot entirely in secret, Mohammad Rasoulof’s searing drama depicts a man’s growing paranoia around encroaching state repression, whilst his family’s increasingly anti-patriarchal conviction at home threatens his carefully constructed public life.

Koji’s (ABE Shinnosuke) father, a whistle-blower, takes his own life. Under pressure from his father’s debtors, Koji begins work at an orphanage run by Kenichi (ANDO Masanobu), but when he is also dragged into Kenichi’s criminal activities by night, the line between good and evil begins to blur.

The latest film from Hong Sangsoo reunites Kim Minhee and Kwon Haehyo in an autumnal tale of desire, self-expression and the inescapable nature of the past.