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.

Fernando Meirelles graduated with a degree in architecture from São Paulo University, where he started to make experimental videos. In the 1980s, he co-founded a production company that provided a breath of fresh air to Brazilian television. His most successful works include the 2000 drama 'City of God' which received four Oscar nominations, which was followed by the Oscar winning 'The Constant Gardner' (2005).

Since 1999, Yves Montmayeur has directed documentaries about films which are regularly screened at international festivals, with a predilection for Asian cinema and directors from countries such as Korea, Hong Kong and Japan. Yves has also made portraits of eccentric authors and unusual personalities: Michael Haneke, cinematographer Christopher Doyle and Italian actress-director, Asia Argento.

His winning the Palme d’Or cemented the position of the Romanian New Wave on the landscape of world cinema. But a glance at the filmmaker’s acclaimed features highlights the tenuousness grouping one generation of filmmakers together. After a series of successful shorts and the solid feature 'Occident' (2002), '4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days' (2007) revealed the breadth of Cristian Mungiu’s talent. An extraordinary drama that runs the gamut from tense, thriller-like scenes to biting satire, the film’s strength nevertheless lies in its profound humanity. This was further explored in 'Beyond the Hills' (2012), which won Mungiu the Best Screenplay award at Cannes and saw its two leads (Cristina Flutur) and (Cosmina Stratan) share the Best Actress prize. They play two friends from childhood whose shared traumas are relived through the strict rules of a convent one of them lives in and to which the other seeks refuge. It is a startling and powerful indictment of religious hypocrisy. 'Graduation' (2017), which was awarded the Best Director prize at Cannes in 2016, returns to a more familiar territory explored by other Romanian New Wave directors – the insidiousness of the behaviour amongst members of the ruling class. Once again, Mungiu’s eye captures the nuances of human dynamics and his wry humour is never far away.