Lion's Den

Women behind bars in a thrilling prison drama from Argentina

Since his astonishing debut Crane World a decade ago, the Argentine Pablo Trapero has been quietly asserting himself as one of the world’s most singular directors. He’s perhaps best known for his breezy verité approach – shooting on location, often using non-actors, and drawing his subjects from everyday Argentine life. At the same time, Trapero has always dallied, slyly, with genre: Rolling Family might be called a road movie, El Bonaerense a cop drama, though each is subverted so as to accord with his desire to be true to quotidian reality.

The Headless Woman

Hitchcock channelled in a briliant and baffling psychothriller from Argentina

A merciless anatomy of the inner meltdown that follows a hit-and-run accident, The Headless Woman is as baffling, brilliant, demanding and utterly original a work as you're likely to see all year. Its themes are confusion, amnesia, disavowal. The director, Lucrecia Martel, by contrast is in vice-like control of her material. This film might be a real head-scratcher. But no-one seeing it can come out unconvinced that Martel is a world-class talent.