This film is currently unavailable

Small Body
This strikingly original and enthralling feature debut from Laura Samani details the odyssey of a young mother as she tries to save her baby’s soul.
Director: Laura Samani
Overview
In an isolated island community in North Eastern Italy at the beginning of the 20th century, Agate gives birth to a stillborn baby. Terrified by being told her child will forever drift in spiritual limbo, she flees husband and family, with her baby’s corpse, embarking on a desperate, dangerous journey to the mountains, where there may be somewhere or someone that can save its soul. With its surprising plot twists and moments of genuine suspense, Small Body could easily pass as a thriller, but its thoughtful tone, dark and enchanting atmosphere, and skilful pacing give it the feel of a Gothic fairy tale. At times breathtakingly beautiful, making great use of its Friuli Venezia settings, this is a captivating, remarkably assured debut, for which director Laura Samani received a special commendation in the First Feature Competition at the 2021 BFI London Film Festival.
Related

Amores perros Amores perros
Drama 2000 148 mins Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Alejandro González Iñárritu's (Birdman, The Revenant) gripping debut feature is a savagely brilliant triptych around the theme of animalistic desires.

Drugstore Cowboy Drugstore Cowboy
Drama 1989 101 mins Director: Gus Van Sant
Matt Dillon and his not-so-merry band of junkies rob pharmacies and cheat death.

Maurice Maurice
Drama 1987 140 mins Director: James Ivory
Merchant Ivory’s landmark adaptation of E M Forster’s classic LGBTQ+ novel and a precursor to the James Ivory-scripted Call Me By Your Name, starring Hugh Grant, James Wilby and Rupert Graves.

When I Saw You When I Saw You
Drama 2014 94 mins Director: Annemarie Jacir
Following the Six-Day War in 1967, a young Palestinian refugee boy yearns to be reunited with his father and joins a band of freedom fighters.

Birthday Girl Birthday Girl
Drama 2023 95 mins Director: Michael Noer
Heart-pounding Danish drama about a mother’s desperate attempts to unmask her daughter’s attacker on board a cruise ship.

Good Bye, Lenin! Good Bye, Lenin!
Drama 2003 121 mins Director: Wolfgang Becker
After his mother wakes from a coma in 1990, a young man goes to great lengths to pretend East Germany still exists in this wonderfully bittersweet tragicomedy.

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
Drama 1975 202 mins Director: Chantal Akerman
Chantal Akerman's magnificent epic of experimental cinema offering a feminist perspective on recurrent events of everyday life.

sex, lies, and videotape sex, lies, and videotape
Drama 1989 100 mins Director: Steven Soderbergh
Steven Soderbergh’s audacious debut, starring James Spader and Andie Macdowell, is an intimate exploration of sexual desire, and a landmark of 90’s American independent filmmaking.

Certain Women Certain Women
Drama 2015 107 mins Director: Kelly Reichardt
Kristen Stewart, Lily Gladstone and Jared Harris star in Kelly Reichardt's acclaimed portmanteau of women's stories; winner of Best Film at BFI London Film Festival 2016.

Safe Safe
Drama 1995 119 mins Director: Todd Haynes
Julianne Moore stars as a suburban housewife who suffers from a mysterious illness in Todd Haynes’ inspired blend of horror and existential Americana.

Je tu il elle Je tu il elle
Drama 1974 86 mins Director: Chantal Akerman
Akerman’s debut feature, with its 10-minute lesbian sex scene, revealed its maker to be a radical and uncompromising force in cinema.

Golden Eighties Golden Eighties
Musical 1986 99 mins Director: Chantal Akerman
Song, dance and romance charge this joyous hair-salon set musical, but Akerman’s take on 80s consumerism is anything but frothy.

Amores perros Amores perros
Drama 2000 148 mins Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Alejandro González Iñárritu's (Birdman, The Revenant) gripping debut feature is a savagely brilliant triptych around the theme of animalistic desires.

Drugstore Cowboy Drugstore Cowboy
Drama 1989 101 mins Director: Gus Van Sant
Matt Dillon and his not-so-merry band of junkies rob pharmacies and cheat death.

Maurice Maurice
Drama 1987 140 mins Director: James Ivory
Merchant Ivory’s landmark adaptation of E M Forster’s classic LGBTQ+ novel and a precursor to the James Ivory-scripted Call Me By Your Name, starring Hugh Grant, James Wilby and Rupert Graves.

Architecton Architecton
Documentary 2024 98 mins Director: Viktor Kossakovsky
Victor Kossakovsky’s film essay looks at the way we have constructed our built world through a series of breathtaking sequences.

Layla Layla
2024 100 mins Director: Amrou Al-Kadhi
A British-Palestinian drag performer catches the eye of a strait-laced white man in Amrou Al-Kadhi’s stunning, semi-autobiographical debut.

When I Saw You When I Saw You
Drama 2014 94 mins Director: Annemarie Jacir
Following the Six-Day War in 1967, a young Palestinian refugee boy yearns to be reunited with his father and joins a band of freedom fighters.