BY DIRECTOR: M

Argentine filmmaker Lucrecia Martel, born in 1966, is one of the most important female filmmakers in world cinema as one of the founding members of the New Argentine Film movement of the 1990s. Her style is minimalist and multi-layered, seamlessly combining image and sound in order to create suffocating, claustrophobic narratives.

One of American cinema's most politically outspoken filmmakers, Michael Moore's documentary work is combative, divisive and outrageously enjoyable. His debut 'Roger & Me' (1989) defined his firebrand approach to his subject, offering up a thoroughly partial account of the impact of GM Motors' decision to close their plant in his home town of Flint, Michigan. 'Bowling for Columbine' (2002) brought the gun control argument into the 21st century, while 'Fahrenheit 9/11' (2004) presented a corrosive attack on the failings of the Bush Presidency. His subsequent work has covered health ('Sicko', 2007), the 2008 economic collapse and it's impact on ordinary Americans ('Capitalism: A Love Story', 2009) and where America seems to be going wrong ('Where to Invade Next', 2015).

Once called the greatest poet the screen has ever known by French film theorist and director Alexandre Astruc, F.W. Murnau (1889-1931) was more a painter than a novelist, his art more concerned with mood than whether his characters were dimensional. He was a master chiaroscurist, brilliantly orchestrating a world moving between lightness and shadows, exemplified by the great 'Nosferatu' (1922), an adaptation of Stoker's 'Dracula'.