Lilly Lives Alone
directed by Martin Melnick
USA, 2025, 100′, Psychological drama / Horror‑drama
The pain of loss can take countless forms and, in the eyes of those who experience it, become brutally all-encompassing. For the eponymous protagonist of Lilly Lives Alone, the debut film by American director Martin Melnick (who also serves as director of photography), the premature death of her daughter represents a trauma from which it is almost impossible to distance herself, so much so that her suffering seems to materialize outwardly. The house where the story unfolds is not just the setting of the action: it functions as the source and reflection of the anxieties and emotional fractures that are tearing the woman apart from within. The debut filmmaker thus structures Lilly’s home in the image of her crises, creating a narrative – and especially linguistic – device that plunges the viewer directly into the character’s traumatic inner world. It is therefore unsurprising that, from the story’s outset, the protagonist is trapped in a constant psychotic delirium, whose desolate effects we witness alongside the other characters, with the house – its walls and rooms – representing a physical manifestation of this turmoil. Thanks to this tactile rendering of trauma, conveyed through the propagation of grief in domestic spaces, Lilly Lives Alone succeeds in combining the sorrows of a “bereaved” mother with the obsessive pursuit of catharsis.
Portal to Hell
directed by Woody Bess
USA, 2025, 93′, Horror-comedy / Dark comedy thriller
A point of contact between horror and comedy lies in both genres’ tendency to explore, through their respective languages, the existential conditions of individuals and their relationship to their socio-cultural context. Debut filmmaker Woody Bess knows this well, and in Portal To Hell, his first feature film, he intertwines these specific registers to create an equally eccentric and reflective story: where the connection between the fantastic iconography of horror narratives and the irreverent tones of grotesque comedy forms a space for ironic reflection, using the cathartic function of humor to comment on both the virtues and inherent weaknesses of ordinary people. This is evident from the very beginning. Dunn (Trey Holland), a debt collector pursuing those in arrears, is immersed in a monotonous routine until he discovers, in a local laundromat, a bizarre “portal to Hell,” controlled by a phantom demon who tasks him with sending three people to the underworld in exchange for saving a neighbor. The protagonist agrees, and the more he attempts to fulfill this absurd and daunting task, the more doubts about his life choices – both past and present – arise, morally and existentially. The short-circuit created here by Bess allows the narrative to engage deliberately with ethical questions, emphasized – but not limited – by the story’s delightfully grotesque nature.
All Quite at Sunrise
directed by Zhu Xin
China, 2025, 101′, Philosophical drama
Director Zhu Xin starts from an urgency: love. This is the spark that, according to the protagonist Ma Ke, drove Lucy, the “grandmother of humanity,” to speak the first word. In his linguistic research for his thesis, the young student attempts to decipher the origin of language, but the boundary between investigation and vision blurs. The present merges with the past, and Lucy’s figure intertwines with that of the lost daughter of the professor guiding him. Around them, memories, intuitions, and traces emerge like fragments of a shared dream, where every voice seems to echo from a distant time. All Quiet at Sunrise thus becomes a suspended journey between science and myth, in which the word reveals itself as the echo of a primordial need: to love and be loved.
The Ghost
directed by John Farrelly
Ireland, 2025, 92′, Horror
Set in an apparently peaceful forest, An Taibhse is the first full-length horror film entirely in the Irish language. Set in 1852, the film follows Éamon and his teenage daughter Máire, employed as caretakers of a remote, deserted mansion, where winter becomes a prison of solitude and despair. The contrast between the idyllic peace of the landscape and the unsettling presences inhabiting the house amplifies the tension: An Taibhse does not merely evoke supernatural entities but explores grief as a genuine tormenting force. The death of an idealized mother and the shadows of a dark past mark Máire’s body and mind, forcing her to confront visions. John Farrelly constructs an atmosphere steeped in religious symbolism and Gothic suggestion; the house becomes a living organism, while the surrounding landscape and countryside stillness accentuate the sense of isolation.
Deep End
directed by Juan Sebastián Jácome
Ecuador / Uruguay, 2025, 86′, Psychological thriller
In Deep End, the family equilibrium is so fragile and transient that it can be irreversibly compromised by a single, catalyzing event. The aspiring novelist at the center of the story seems, at least superficially, to represent the gravity center of a model family, where harmony and mutual respect prevail. But the sudden discovery of the housekeeper’s corpse in their garden instantly shatters the veneer of serenity under which Marcela’s (Giovanna Andrade) family had lived, leaving her life to crumble piece by piece, almost unable to respond to the cascade of misfortunes befalling her. To emphasize the chaos enveloping the family following the housekeeper’s death (or murder?), Ecuadorian director Juan Sebastián Jácome does not merely implode the family from within – from a purely emotional perspective – but orchestrates a disintegration of the protagonist’s mental state, exacerbated above all by the numerous intimidating accusations brutally directed at her by the city community to which she no longer belongs.