Nicolas Rapold Festivals

Hamaguchi’s touching portrayal of friendship and communion between a care home manager and a playwright with a terminal illness allows the director to investigate the possibility of change in a capitalist system, both on screen and off.

Bruce Dern brought his almost unnerving, rangy intensity to New Hollywood, turning journeyman for years before later highlights like Nebraska (2013) and Django Unchained (2012). Dernsie: The Amazing Life of Bruce Dern runs through his career and his life – father to Laura Dern, husband of Diane Ladd, black-sheep of a prominent American family. Still acting in multiple films per year, 89-year-old Dern displays an endurance echoed by his life-long love of long-distance running.

Sandra Hüller brings her clipped brilliance to the role of Erika Mann as she accompanies her father, the Nobel-prize winning author Thomas Mann, on a ceremonial trip from Allied West Germany to Soviet-occupied East Germany in the postwar devastation of 1949.