BEST OF FESTS

ON FALLING

2024 / 104 min / color

Aurora (a compelling performance by Joana Santos), is a migrant worker from Portugal. Fate has brought her to Scotland, where she works in a warehouse at a massive logistics center. Her daily routine largely consists of repetitive, mechanical tasks – scanning barcodes on a series of items and selecting and completing orders. In addition to her numbing work routine, she has to contend with patronizing treatment from her superiors, and a heartless system that cares about daily quotas much more than the individual. After a day at the warehouse, Laura returns to the flat she shares with people like her, also desperately seeking better opportunities (there’s also a Polish storyline here!). Laura Carreira’s film, winner of the Best Director Award at the San Sebastián Film Festival, is made in the spirit of the cinema of the Dardenne brothers and Ken Loach, offering a pointed critique of increasingly predatory capitalism, a system in which Excel, algorithms and profit maximization are more important than the fate of the individual. On Falling is a remarkably mature debut film — an intimate story about economic violence, the loneliness that accompanies it, and the attempt to find deeper meaning in life.

• San Sebastián IFF – Silver Seashell (Best Director), RTVE-Otra Mirada Award;
• London IFF – Sutherland Award;
• Thessaloniki FF – Best Actress (Joana Santos)