Tips From We are Public

By Inez de Coo, Film curator at We are Public.

For We Are Public I’m always on the lookout for remarkable films that challenge how we think
about art, culture, the people we meet and the people we could become. Of course, IFFR provides an embarrassment of riches, but I’m particularly proud of our selection this year. Each film manages to challenge our preconceptions and trigger our imagination in a wonderfully creative way.

Some filmmakers I was already familiar with, such as Isabel Sandoval, who made the fantastic
Lingua Franca. As a trans woman of colour she has a uniquely important perspective that should
be valuable to a lot of us, especially in our current political climate. I’m very much looking forward to seeing her film noir Moonglow. The films of Dutch filmmaker Nanouk Leopold, who made Guernsey and Brownian Movement, among others, have often featured in We Are Public’s
selection because of her fearless filmmaking. Whitetail is surely no exception. Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi previously made the brilliantly transgressive On Body and Soul, so I’m very excited to see her Silent Friend, about the connection between people and the ancient Gingko biloba tree.

Other titles have already made a big splash around the world and deserve to be seen by as many
people as possible. Like the wonderfully unique queer ghost story A Useful Ghost, which won the Grand Prix at the Semaine de la Critique in Cannes. Julia Jackman’s feminist retelling of
Sheherazade, 100 Nights of Hero, with the multi-talented Charli XCX in its star-studded cast, was
very well received at Venice Film Festival, as was rap musical My Semba by Hugo Salvaterra.

And of course Basque horror Gaua, which combines four mesmerising stories about the night, created a lot of buzz at Sitges Film Festival.

In short, make sure to catch as many as you can!

Inez de Coo, curator of film at We Are Public