UNDER THE SHADOW (2016)

UK-Jordan-Qatar-Iran. Direction: Babak Anvari. Production: Lucan Toh, Oliver Roskill, Emily Leo / Wigwam Films, Creativity Capital, MENA Film. Screenplay: Babak Anvari. Photography: Kit Fraser. Music: Jang Young-gyu. Edition: Chris Barwell. Cast: Narges Rashidi, Avin Manshadi, Bobby Naderi, Arash Marandi, Aram Ghasemy. Running time: 84 min

LANGUAGE: Farsi / SUBTITLES: Basque, English

It's not so much compared with the empowered A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014), but more with other wonderful, dark films from the genre that are also politically, socially and vitally engaged, such as The Devil's Backbone (2001), or Dark Water (2002). An impressive, yet extremely subtle argument about what it means to be a woman and a mother—which is why it is put on the same plane as the wonderful The Babadook (2014)—, caught up in several different battles (and not only against dijnns, the demons of Islam), with war lighting and an insurgent, yet elegant camera style. This is the director's first piece of work, an Iranian who calls London his home, and the film has already been nominated for several different awards. A perfect portrait of a country, of an age, of its women and of its men. Sometimes it even makes you think about Another Turn of the Screw.