Politics

A riveting animated tale of the fall of the Berlin Wall – and people brave enough to change the world – told through the eyes of a courageous 12-year-old girl.

Lauren Greenfield (The Queen of Versailles, NZIFF12) harnesses extraordinary access and the boastful, unrepentant nature of her subject, Imelda Marcos, in this unsettling chronicle of ill-gotten wealth and political corruption.

By turns comedic and Kafkaesque, this fly-on-the-wall doco observes the fortunes of Ramallah, an epicentre of Palestinian commerce and culture, and its tireless mayor, whose work to better the city is met with danger and frustration.

Saudi superstar director Haifaa Al-Mansour’s latest is a winning homecoming; a seriocomic look at the daily struggles of a doctor running for council – and her fellow women and outsiders – within an Islamic society undergoing dramatic change.

Compiling rare found-footage into an unnerving visual essay on Stalin’s cult of personality, this disquieting film observes the notorious Soviet leader’s 1953 funeral procession – and with it, the end spectacle of a tyrannical regime.

The acclaimed director of The Sea Inside returns with his most handsomely mounted film yet, an expansive yet deep-focus drama detailing events around the Spanish Civil War and the rise of Franco’s fascist dictatorship.