Not All Films Are About Love

2026-02-10 - 12:56

Listen to the AI generated audio article. Your browser does not support the audio element. Despite the tragedies and political turmoil unfolding in the world, the film industry has stepped into awards season. It often struggles to distract and entertain people who themselves struggle not to go crazy reading the news every morning. Fortunately, many nominated films reflect current socio-political developments, which softens the sense of guilt that comes with trying to escape reality. Most films nominated for the European Film Awards, Oscars, Golden Globes, César Awards, and others premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as at Berlinale and Venice, or have simply entered theatrical distribution. Many share thematic and stylistic similarities, providing an interesting lens for exploring the interests and tendencies of the contemporary film industry and its financing. Since festivals adopted 50/50 gender representation policies, more films about women have started to appear in festival lineups, and 2025 was no exception. Despite widespread fatigue with films depicting the challenges of being a woman, and despite near-classics of the genre by John Cassavetes and Pedro Almodóvar, this remains the dominant mode of representing female characters. The best examples from 2025 are Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and Lynne Ramsay’s Die My Love. In Bronstein’s film, the tension of responsibility and resulting anxiety disperses throughout, passing to the viewer. In Ramsay’s film, it concentrates almost entirely on Jennifer Lawrence’s character, making the performance feel exaggerated and overacted. The endless suffering of women passed down through generations is the focus of Mascha Schilinski’s Sound of Falling. She fills the film with multiple references to classic cinema to make it appear more artistic, which, unfortunately, adds little value to the content. Women are also central in Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s new film Young Mothers, where the brothers remain loyal to their social-minimalist style. A near sub-genre consists of films by Arab or African filmmakers co-produced with France, most premiering at Cannes. In 2025, these included Promised Sky by Erige Sehiri, The Little Sister by Hafsia Herzi, and Aisha Can’t Fly Away by Morad Mostafa—all telling stories of immigrant women. Armenian filmmaker Tamara Stepanyan’s In the Land of Arto, fits this sub-genre as well. Premiering at the Locarno Film Festival, it follows a French woman who travels to her late husband’s hometown, Gyumri, seeking answers. Another recent trend, mostly at Cannes, has been including directorial debuts by famous actors in the official lineup. In 2025, Scarlett Johansson (Eleanor the Great) and Kristen Stewart (The Chronology of Water) made their debuts, both with films about women. Given the immense audience interest and instant sell-outs, this trend will likely continue. Among the female-centered films that premiered in 2025, Eva Victor’s beautiful and unpretentious debut Sorry, Baby, a small, episodic film that masterfully depicts what it means to be a woman in the contemporary world, stands out. Last year, though with some delay, more films about Gaza began to circulate. In previous years, very few films on the subject were programmed, mostly by documentary film festivals, and they rarely reached beyond cinephile circles (with the exception of No Other Land [2024], dir. Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor). However, as it has become impossible to deny the genocide of Palestinians, major festivals, directors, and producers have decided to engage with the topic. Films such as Tarzan and Arab Nasser’s Once Upon a Time in Gaza, Nadav Lapid’s Yes, Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab, Kamal Aljafari’s With Hasan in Gaza, Sapideh Farsi’s Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, and Annemarie Jacir’s Palestine 36 have emerged in alongside numerous documentaries screened in Amsterdam, Lyon, and elsewhere. Almost all share one thing in common: while addressing the tragedies unfolding in Gaza, they do not mention Israel, as if the destruction were carried out by some external, supernatural force. The reason for this omission is clear, and often the only way to secure a path into such festivals, but films like Nadav Lapid’s Yes acquire particular importance. Lapid tells the story from the other side, from the perspective of an Israeli composer commissioned to write the country’s national anthem. With his distinctive psychedelic style, Lapid creates a contemporary tale full of sound and fury. While urgent topics deserve cinematic attention, subjects that “sell” tend to attract opportunistic filmmakers. Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, for example, has built her reputation making films about various conflicts in the Middle East. In contrast, directors such as Kamal Aljafari have spent years making small but powerful films that explore collective memory and the efforts of genocidal forces to erase it. Many films in 2024 revolved around grief— The Shrouds by David Cronenberg, Megalopolis by Francis Ford Coppola, and When the Light Breaks by Rúnar Rúnarsson. In 2025, characters seek active revenge instead, kidnapping those who have wronged them in Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident, Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia, and Gus Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire. These films echo Hamlet’s dilemma: “to forgive or not to forgive, to take revenge or to let them go.” Another recurring theme is fathers searching for disappeared daughters, as seen in Sirat by Óliver Laxe, One Battle After Another by Paul Thomas Anderson, and Dry Leaf by Alexandre Koberidze. Anderson’s film offers an alternative resolution: despite Leonardo DiCaprio’s weak efforts to save his daughter, he fails, and she saves herself. Indecisive citizens (indecisive men) have become increasingly relevant for American filmmakers. Such figures appear in Mastermind by Kelly Reichardt, Eddington by Ari Aster, and others. The 2025 film year shows that Europe’s decade-long policy of funding equal gender representation has begun to pay off as more stories now center on female characters. Yet the problem of representation persists, since most of these films still focus on the challenges and miseries of women. Curiously, this tendency toward “misery porn” does not extend to another widely promoted European topic and funded in Europe: films about LGBTQI communities, which in 2025 were notably diverse and vivid (The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo by Diego Céspedes, Pillion by Harry Lighton, The History of Sound by Oliver Hermanus). Films in 2025 also reflect, albeit with some reservations, the global socio-political situation: the genocide in Gaza, the ongoing turmoil in Iran, and the immigration policy crisis in the United States. Projecting these global cinema trends onto Armenian reality reveals a clear pattern: many recent Armenian films focus on either women or Artsakh. Through small but decisive steps, Armenian cinema appears to be moving in parallel with the international film industry. And below is my personal list of the best films of 2025: I Only Rest in the Storm, dir. Pedro Pinho The Secret Agent, dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho Dry Leaf, dir. Alexandre Koberidze Imago, dir. Deni Oumar Pitsaev Sirat, dir. Óliver Laxe Yes, dir. Nadav Lapid With Hasan in Gaza, dir. Kamal Aljafari Mastermind, dir. Kelly Reichardt Heads or Tails, dir. Alessio Rigo de Righi & Matteo Zoppis Sorry, Baby, dir. Eva Victor Film Reviews by EVN Report “Caucasian Blues”, a Collaboration That Couldn’t Find Its Voice Taline Oundjian Dec 11, 2025 A long-awaited South Caucasian co-production promises hope through collaboration, but “Caucasian Blues” struggles with stereotypes, weak writing and shallow politics, revealing how much harder genuine, transformative regional storytelling still is. Taline Oundjian’s review. Read more From Artsakh to Gaza, No One Will Be Free Sona Karapoghosyan Mar 12, 2024 An Armenian film, “1489” won the Main Jury and the International Federation of Film Critics prizes at the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam in 2023 amid upheaval and controversy that triggered a series of withdrawals and boycotts of the festival for its perceived silence regarding Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Read more 5 Dreamers and a Horse Sona Karapoghosyan Mar 13, 2023 The directors of the documentary “5 Dreamers and a Horse” manage to think outside of genre limitations, and to blend the elements of magical realism and cinéma vérité to create a strange fairy tale that resembles the one in which we all live. Read more The Armenian Dream: Michael Goorjian’s Film About Charlie the Repatriate Sona Karapoghosyan Dec 23, 2022 Michael Goorjian’s feature film “Amerikatsi” succeeded in infusing a sentimental and “positivist” tone inherent to Hollywood cinema within an Armenian reality, writes film critic Sona Karapoghosyan. Read more