What Ingrid Watches

It's the end of August and slowly but surely, Oscar season is heating up. Right now, a lot of countries are selecting the movie that will represent them for the Oscar of foreign language film. 16 countries - and counting - have done this so far. Flashback to 1993, when Cuba chose its most successful movie ever... In an ice salon, somewhere in Cuba, two men meet. One is David, a student in political science, in favour of the Cuban revolution, who has just been dumped. The other is a flamboyant gay photographer, Diego, who opposes the revolution and is clearly smitten with the student. From the beginning, it is clear that these two men are each others' opposites and not just on a political level. The movie follows the budding of the unlikely close friendship between the two men through a series of conversations. Diego can not help but fall with the gorgeous student and David gradually comes to a better understanding of Diego's political choice. Enter Diego's lovel...

Somewhere in France, a Georgian immigrant called Sébastien works as a handyman for Godon, a criminal who is addicted to drugs. Quite unexpectedly the latter dies of an overdose without having paid the former for all his work. As an act of revenge, Sébastien steals an envelope containing a train ticket and a hotel voucher in the hope it will lead to him to a job. The young man follows a series of mysterious instructions which eventually lead him to a mansion in the middle of nowhere. There a terrible fate awaits him, but there is no way back... Director Géla Babluani takes his time for the introduction of his first long feature and that is a bit of a shame. The first 30 minutes are slow and quite frankly, a bit boring. But then suddenly, the pace changes. As soon as Sébastien finds himself in a brutal game where old men bet large sums of money on men playing a variety of Russian roulette, the viewer is quickly led from one horrific scene to another. And somehow this mix of thrill...