Kerry Fox

Alice (Emily Beecham) has engineered a special flower that makes its owner happy. Against company policy, Alice takes one home to her son. As their plant grows, so does Alice's suspicion that her new creation may not be as harmless as they thought.

18 BODIES: Bodies in cinema can be enticing, dancing or brutalised. Jane Fonda narrates this chapter about how the great directors—including Agnes Varda, Andrea Arnold, Iran’s Marva Nabili, Finland’s Pirjo Honkasalo, Marta Meszaros and Poland’s Wanda Jakubowska—have filmed bodies. 19 SEX: From bodies to sex – the most controversial aspect of film. In this chapter Diane Kurys, Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Jamie Babbit, Safi Faye, Athena Rachel...

03 BELIEVIBILITY: Easy to spot, but not so easy to understand. Believability is about simple human stories, truth about life, real emotions, responding to the world. Howdo directors create a reality without it feeling fake? True stories can help, but what’s the trick? Here are some answers, with a masterclass in believability from Lois Weber’s The Blot to Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann. 04 INTRODUCING CHARACTER: Going to a house, overhearing people,...

32 REVEAL: Paired with chapter 31, is this one, it’s opposite. How does Lynne Ramsay do a reveal in Morven Caller? How does the great actor-director Kinuyo Tanaka? Or Sarah Polley? Or Italy’s Alice Rohrwacher? 33 MEMORY: As cinema is a kind of time machine, it’s no surprise that it’s great at memory. In this chapter we look at rare movie gems about memory directed by filmmakers including Petra Costa, Greece’s Maria Plytya, Poland’s Dorota...

23 POLITICS: Another aspect of everyday life. From silent cinema to the 21 st Century, movies from the visually astonishing The Enchanted Desna to Divorce Iranian Style to Bigelow’s Strange Days have gained their energy and attack from their politics. 24 GEAR CHANGE: We like to be taken by surprise in films. This short chapter, narrated by Sharmila Tagore, looks at such surprises. 25 COMEDY: Is comedy universal? Who have been the great comedy filmmakers...

29 TENSION: Thrillers, but much more. We look at gripping scenes in films as diverse as Joel DeMott’s documentary Demon Lover Diary, Kathryn Bigelow’s Blue Steel, Carol Morley’s Dreams of A Life, Mimi Leder’s Peacemaker, and Marleen Gorris’ remarkable A Question of Silence. 30 STASIS: Cinema is an action art, isn’t it? Or is it? Directors Angela Schanelec, Anouk Leopold, Kira Muratova, Chantal Akerman, Sharon Lockhart, and Pakistan’s...

06 CONVERSATION: A basic human interaction – how to make it cinematic? Angela Schanelec directs us to focus on body language in Places in Cities, Cecile Tang uses the zoom as guide through the emotional shifts in The Arch, and Sofia Coppola in The Virgin Suicides shows us an unspoken conversation through division with songs and split screens telling a story of impossible longing. 07 FRAMING: Frames describe and paint the scenes. They can make sport...

09 STAGING: Scene staging is an element of film form pointing clearly to cinema’s origin – theatre. Kinuyo Tanaka in The Moon Has Risen uses staging to shape the scene’s invisible geometry, accentuating the tension between characters. Maren Ade in Toni Erdmann stages the scene through depth, facilitating the tragicomic punchline. And in Maria Schrader’s Stefan Zweig: A Farewell to Europe, the criss-crossing complex staging in the final scene...

Mr. Watts is the last Englishman remaining in a tropical village in Bougainville during its civil war in the 1990s. He begins to teach the local children by reading them Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens. Matilda, an imaginative young girl, is transported into the story of the novel, believing that Dickens' character Pip is her friend. Matilda's "Pip" world is an extraordinary fusion of Dickens' Victorian London with the environment and people...

Max owns one of the world's most influential media empires. Information is his trade: he holds dark secrets on everyone, and uses his power ruthlessly. His son Caden is editor of Max's mouthpiece, The National Reporter. But Caden is crumbling under the pressure of his father's expectation. When Caden's excess causes a massive stroke, he's left like a helpless child. For Kathryn - Max's estranged wife - this is a chance to reconnect with son boy Max...