One of the great pleasures of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival (ADFF) is that it provides an opportunity for audiences here to see movies that have won prizes at other festivals.
These are awards presented to what judges consider to be the best films they’ve seen at the festival and, unlike at the Oscars, the decisions are usually spot-on.
This year, the festival presents the Middle East debut winners of the Palme d’Or, which is the top prize in Cannes, Berlin’s Golden Bear winner, Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize winner, Venice’s Golden Lion, San Sebastian’s Golden Shell and Tribeca’s Best Documentary winner.
Winter Sleep
Winter Sleep won the Palme d'Or, arguably the biggest prize in film. Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan came to prominence when his third film Uzak (Distant) won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes in 2002. His next three films – Climates (2006), Three Monkeys (2008) and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011) – also won prizes in Cannes, so it seemed only a matter of time before he went home with the big one.
Despite being his longest film, at three hours and 16 minutes, it's also his most accessible and dialogue-heavy. The way the story – about a former actor who runs a hotel in Anatolia – unfolds is reminiscent of Asghar Farhadi's brilliant A Separation. It starts with a boy throwing a stone at a car and from that moment on every time a character appears on screen, some new moral conundrum seems to appear. It's absorbing.
Magical Girl
After the ADFF 2014 programme was announced, showing the strength of the selection was shown by Magical Girl by Carlos Vermut which won the Best Film prize at the San Sebastian Film Festival.
A drama about a father trying to fulfil the last wish of his leukaemia-suffering daughter, it’s an intriguing film that wins points for the way that it surprises and wrong-foots the audience.
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
Swedish auteur Roy Andersson is a director of the old school. The reason that it takes him seven years to make a movie is because he builds all of his own sets and is meticulous about every aspect of the frame.
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence begins with three brilliant jokes about death, before segueing into a complex and remarkable choreographed sequence that delves into Swedish royal history.
Throughout, Andersson ensures that every single frame looks like it could be cut out and hung on a museum wall.
Point and Shoot
Documentary fans will be enthralled by two-time Oscar-nominated Marshall Curry’s depiction of United States citizen Matthew VanDyke, who made headlines in 2011 when he was imprisoned in Libya for fighting in the uprising against Colonel Qaddafi.
Made using archive footage, interviews and animation, Point and Shoot is enthrallingly told, as Curry once again demonstrates why he is one of the leading documentary filmmakers in the world.
Black Coal, Thin Ice
Berlin prize-winner Black Coal, Thin Ice, is a powerful noir thriller that evokes the spirit of Raymond Chandler. In the best traditions of film noir, there are no heroes, only conflicted individuals trying to comprehend life.
Chinese actor Liao Fan also won Best Actor for his role as the forlorn detective, while the femme fatale, in the shape of Gwei Lun Mei, is a perfect pulp romantic foil. There is no better crime story this year.
Whiplash
It would be no surprise if Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Whiplash is a front-runner for the Oscars next year. Quite simply, it's one of the best American films of 2014, and features an absolutely brilliant performance by JK Simmons, who plays Terence Fletcher, a jazz maestro, who now teaches students at New York's fictional Schaffer Conservatory.
But his teaching philosophy is to bully his pupils into submission, and most of his ire is aimed at the talented, but sensitive, Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller). It’s a roller coaster of emotions.
