Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 14/9/2017)

While examples like Tilda Swinton's casting as a Tibetan mentor in Scott Derrickson's Doctor Strange (2016) remains objectionable, whitewashing is nowhere near as prevalent and pernicious as the policy of Yellow, Brown and Blackface casting during the Hollywood studio era. Yet few bat an eyelid when an able-bodied performer essays someone with a physical or psychological disability. Indeed, as Kate Winslet joked during her cameo in Ricky Gervais's sharply satirical Extras (2005-07), actors cast as differently able characters stand a much better chance of snagging an Oscar nomination. And one only has to mention Jane Wyman's Best Actress win for playing a deaf girl in Jean Negulesco's Johnny Belinda (1948) and Daniel Day-Lewis's Best Actor victory for his performance as cerebral palsied artist Christy Brown in Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot (1989) to prove her point.

Exceptions do exist, of course, with double amputee Harold Russell winning two Academy Awards for his work in William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) and the profoundly deaf Marlee Matlin took the Best Actress prize for Randa Haines's Children of a Lesser God (1986). Moreover, earlier this year, CJ Jones (who lost his hearing during a childhood bout of spinal meningitis) played Ansol Elgort's deaf foster father in Edgar Wright's Baby Driver. Yet there were still complaints that Elgort himself does not have a hearing impairment, while the casting of Eddie Redmayne in James Marsh's The Theory of Everything (2014) was also censured by some, even though Stephen Hawking approved of a performance that required the actor to show how his character's body was gradually ravaged by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. It will be interesting, therefore, to see what the response will be to the pairing in Hungarian sophomore Attila Till's Kills on Wheels of the able-bodied Szabolcs Thuróczy with Zoltán Fenyvesi and Adám Fekete, who have respectively been wheelchair-bound since birth and diagnosed with cerebral palsy.

Having survived a three-year stint in a prison for inmates with physical disabilities, Szabolcs Thuróczy checks out the care home where 20 year-old wheelchair user Zoltán Fenyvesi is working on a graphic novel with an anti-hero who looks rather like the paraplegic Thuróczy with his cerebral palsy-suffering roommate, Adám Fekete. When they steal a fire extinguisher to shoot against the outside wall, they get a clip round the ear from Thuróczy, who used to be a firefighter before losing the use of his legs in an accident. But he takes a shine to them for showing pluck in answering him back and signs them into a trendy nightclub, where he gets them drunk and offers them jobs as his assistant.

Thuróczy is particularly interested in Fekete, as he has a driving licence. However, he is happy for Fenyvesi to tag along, even though he suffers from such excruciating back pain that he frequently needs to flatten out to ease the pressure on his spine. Doctor Björn Freiberg informs Fenyvesi's mother, Mónika Balsai, that he needs a crucial operation in Stuttgart. But Fenyvesi is reluctant to accept money from the father who abandoned him after his birth and refuses to consent to the life-saving surgery.

Back in his bed, Fenyvesi looks at the crime drawings around his bed and one morphs into the scene of Thuróczy meeting with Serbain crime lord Dusan Vitanovics, who goes everywhere with his fearsome foursome of Dobermans. He gives Thuróczy a package containing a gun and questions whether he is confident that a paralysed man in a wheelchair can carry out an assassination. The bullish Thuróczy has no doubts and sits in a car park in full view of the snack kiosk where Fenyvesi and Fekete are buying a lunch. A vehicle crawls past Thuróczy and four thugs get out. They wander over when he identifies himself as their contact. But their leader is sceptical and stabs a knife into Thuróczy's. The heavy is unnerved when Thuróczy doesn't so much as flinch and produces a gun from a yellow carrier back to mow down his prey and wheel himself nonchalantly to a stunned Fenyvesi and Fekete waiting in the getaway car.

They drive him to the nearby hospital, where nurse Lidia Danis tends to his wound. She used to be his girlfriend, but she has moved on while he was in prison and she breaks the news that she is going to marry the fiancé who disapproves of her having anything to do with Thuróczy. Furious and bitter, he goes home and drinks while thinking back about his fall from being a hero to a petty thief after his accident and he wheels himself to the steep steps of a nearby flyover and throws himself forward.

By contrast, Fekete and Fenyvesi return to their care home and sit in with an art class while they work on their book. Across the city, however, Vitanovics is attacked by two gunmen in a passing car while walking his dogs. Having been hit in the arm, he unmuzzles the three surviving Dobermans and orders them to show no mercy, as they smash through the windscreen and maul the shooters to death. He sports a sling when he meets up with Thuróczy, who is none the worse for his tumble. Vitanovics smiles on hearing that Thuróczy liquidated all four of his moral foe's henchmen. It amuses him that no one suspects Thuróczy because he's in a wheelchair, but he warns him that their collaboration will end the moment he fouls up or leaves a trail of clues. He also informs Thuróczy that he wants him to rub out his rival's slimeball lawyer, although he admits he is a tough target, as he never goes anywhere without a bodyguard.

While Balsai keeps trying to talk Fenyvesi into accepting his father's money and travelling to Germany, he delights in taunting Thuróczy, who is attempting to walk using leg braces and some parallel bars. They haven't spoken since the car park incident and Fenyvesi reassures Thuróczy that he hasn't called the police. Unamused at feeling vulnerable in front of someone he considers an inferior, Thuróczy leans forward to menace Fenyvesi, but succeeds only in falling over and has to stay on the floor while Fenyvesi clambers out of his chair to lie beside him and play some music while they wait for the physios to assist them.

Fekete and Fenyvesi take their drawings to a comic-book convention, but the publishers are mostly unimpressed. One offers to reconsider if they win the amateur prize at a forthcoming comi-con and they try to celebrate with a treat from a vending machine. However, Fekete's condition means that his hands shake when he goes to press the buttons and they wind up with pretzels instead of fizzy water. Thuróczy also has a disappointment when he buys flowers for Danis but she doesn't even notice him as she drives off with her chap. But Thuróczy refuses to give up on her and also surprises Vitanovics when he comes up with a plan to eradicate the lawyer.

With Fenyvesi and Fekete positioned at points across the square in front of St Stephen's Basilica, Thuróczy begins feeding the pigeons while his target finishes his lunch at an outdoor restaurant. As he walks away, Thuróczy kills him with a single bullet from a silenced pistol hidden in the bag of bird seed and a watching Vitanovics seems impressed by the efficiency and anonymity of the hit. But Fenyvesi proves less discreet when he tells Freiberg to stop interfering in his life and berates Balsai for lying to protect his father. She insists that they split because she had to remain in Hungary because she was Olympic champion, but Fenyvesi declares he would rather die than let his father salve his conscience by paying for his operation.

He is still in a foul temper when Thuróczy finishes another therapy session and struggles to understand why someone would willingly let themselves die. But Fenyvesi says he is tired of being the crippled one and wants someone else to suffer for a while instead. Thuróczy offers to take him for a meal to cheer him up. But, when he asks Vitanovics for his fee, the Serb tips him out of his chair and threatens to set the dogs on him for breaking his vow to work alone. He orders Thuróczy to rub out his partners or face the consequences.

Needing to make their deaths look like an accident, Thuróczy proposes a fishing expedition to the reed marshes outside Budapest. They are hampered by the fact the battery expires on Fenyvesi's electric chair and Thuróczy has to carry him on his lap. But they get to the jetty and are busy chatting about the disabled in Sweden and Denmark receiving sex vouchers when Thuróczy pushes Fekete into the water when he gets a bite and launches Fenyvesi after him when he yells that his friend can't swim. They splash around for a while, as Thuróczy waits patiently for them to drown. But, as he turns to leave, his firefighting instinct kicks in and he plunges off the decking to rescue them.

Drying out by a campfire, Thuróczy gives Fenyvesi a gun as a gift and they agree to have a party with three of the physio assistants. They all get drunk at Thuróczy's shabby flat and Fekete enjoys flirting with one girl, while Fenyvesi cuddles another sat on his knee. Thuróczy mentions Danis to his companion (as she has invited him to the wedding) and she offers to help surprise her by loaning him the leg braces and propping him up outside the nurse's home so that he looks like his old self again. He agrees to the scheme and the three women guide him across the road and leave him leaning against a taxi parked at the kerb. When Danis fails to show, Fenyvevi suggests phoning her and Thuróczy is disappointed to find that she isn't working today and is teaching somewhere else in the city.

Fenyvesi makes up with Balsai and asks why she didn't remarry or have any more children. She hugs him by way of an answer and he doesn't push the point. Vitanovics also takes Thuróczy's word when he reports that Fekete and Fenyvesi drowned. Instead, he buys him some pork chops while out shopping for his dogs (one of whom is a diabetic on a special diet). He also confides the whereabouts of his nemesis and Thuróczy agrees to do the hit, which he insists will be his swan song.

Once again, Fenyvesi and Fekete draw on their comic-book imagination to come up with an ingenious plan and use art class materials to secrete a gun inside Thuróczy's wheelchair cushion. He talks his way inside the stronghold and, even though his claim to be the gangster's cellmate fails to hold water, it buys him enough time to get clean shots at the henchmen and their boss. However, he needs Fekete to ram the security gate in order to make good his escape, while Fenyvesi plays the innocent man in a wheelchair to send the cops reporting to an emergency call on a wild goose chase.

Relieved to have got out unscathed, Thuróczy informs Fenyvesi and Fekete that they are more trouble than they are worth and that he wants to terminate their relationship. However, Vitanovics discovers that he failed to kill his cohorts and he leaves Thuróczy dangling from a noose in an empty warehouse. Luckily, he still has enough upper-body strength to pull himself up and loosen the rope. But he smuggles Fekete and Fenyvesi out of the home and hides them at his apartment, where they hatch a plan to attach a tracker to Vitanovics's car so that Thuróczy can dispose of him after Danis's wedding.

Unfortunately, Thuróczy gets drunk during the reception and tries to kiss Danis before hijacking the microphone to sing her a song. Eventually, members of the groom's entourage haul him outside to give him a beating. But Thuróczy has invited Fenyvesi along and he rolls into the courtyard behind the hotel to pull his pistol on them and Thuróczy promises Danis that he won't bother her again, as they drive away.

Meanwhile, Fekete and a couple of pals have bugged Vitanovics's car and they wait until darkness falls and his guard detail goes off duty to strike. Waiting for Vitanovics to return after walking the dogs, Thuróczy and Fenyvesi demand their money and he taunts them by leaving the key to the safe on his desk and challenging them to steal it. Thuróczy frightens the Dobermans by letting off a fire extinguisher and, when Vitanovics fatally attacks him with a knife, Fenyvesi shoots him dead and takes enough money to pay for his operation.

Fekete and Fenyvesi complete their novel, which they call Kills on Wheels. As he prepares to go into theatre, we see a package being delivered to his father in Germany. He looks like a tidier version of Thuróczy and it turns out that Fenyvasi had based the character of the firefighter-turned-disabled-assassin on the only photograph he had ever seen of his father. The man opens the parcel with his two children from his second marriage and he is surprised to hear from his son after such a long silence.

Four months later, Fenyvesi and Fekete attend comic-con. They fail to win the amateur prize, but one female judge is sufficiently impressed with their work to offer them a deal. She even likes the deodorant that Fekete has been spraying on his clothing throughout the story. As the woman congratulates them, Fekete and Fenyvesi shoot each other a grin a satisfaction.

There's a scene in Family Guy, in which Brian suggests to Stewie that the surprise ending to the two-part story in which Lois is presumed murdered is such an insult to the intelligence that it's akin to giving the audience the finger. Some may consider the last-reel twist in this engaging saga to be similarly glib. But Attila Till just about gets away with it, as no one could ever mistake this tale of a paraplegic hitman for a slice of social realism. Indeed, in its use of drawings and animations as scenic transitions, it resembles Gabriele Mainetti's They Call Me Jeeg Robot (2015), which also played fast and loose with the real and the imagined.

Besides, Till is entitled to a little leeway because of his bold casting of Zoltán Fenyvesi and Adám Fekete, whose ease in front of the camera is matched by Szabolcs Thuróczy's creditable bid to play a man of action dealing with the bodily and emotional pain of losing the ability to walk. Something of an Instagram celebrity on account of his activism and his handbike marathon exploits, Fenyvesi carries most of the emotional weight, even though Fekete is the more experienced performer as a member of the TAP Theatre Company. More mobile than his co-star, he is mostly used for his driving skills and as comic relief, as he constantly sprays himself to keep cool with a fragrance everyone but the female publisher finds overpowering.

Often keeping the camera at low angles to approximate the perspective of a person in a chair, Imre Juhasz achieves some arresting and amusing visuals, while editor Márton Gothár abets production designer Márton Agh in neatly contrasting the worlds that Fenyvesi and Fekete inhabit and imagine. Composer Csaba Kalotás also contributes a score that slips unobtrusively between intimacy and dynamism. Moreover, Till makes Thuróczy and the hissably cynophilic Dusán Vitanovics such an integral part of the core action that only the very alert will twig their true identity before the big reveal. But, for all the fun he has in staging the darkly quirky hits, Till never forgets his aim of disproving the myths surrounding disability and his bid to do his bit for cine-diversity. For these intentions alone, he deserves great credit.

This weeks CinemaItaliaUK presentation is Claudio Amendola's Il Permesso - 48 ore fuori/The Furlough - 48 Hours Outside, which sees the popular actor return behind the camera for the second time after La mossa del pinguino/The Penguin's Move (2013). Best known in this country for his performances in Ricky Tognazzi's La scorta (1993), Jean-Paul Rappeneau's The Horseman on the Roof (1995) and Stefano Sollina's Suburra (2015), Amendola directs himself in this poignant study of four strangers given a 48-hour chance to turn their lives around.

Held in Civitavecchia Prison on the outskirts of Rome, Luca Argentero does sit-ups in his cell before being given a 48-hour furlough for good behaviour. He struts out into the pale morning sunshine, as veteran crook Claudio Amendola saunters to the train station. The chirpy Giacomo Ferrara manages to annoy Valentina Bellè by chatting to her in the waiting-room. But she gives him a lift in the Bentley being driven by family chauffeur Jerry Mastrodomenico and even has sex with him in the backseat after she has gulped down a tub of ice cream. However, she barely acknowledges Ferrara, as she sweeps into the large villa, where secretary Silvia Degrandi informs her that her mother, Valentina Sperlì, has an unbreakable appointment and will see her later.

Argentero buys a coffee and asks to borrow a phone so that he can book a date with a prostitute. However, when he arrives at the brothel in a rough part of the city, he realises that the girl he has booked is not his missing wife and he beats up the bouncer before stalking off to find pimp Antonino Iuorio, who offers him a chance to buy his wife's freedom by doing him a favour. Yet, even though he wins a brutal bare-knuckle boxing bout, Iuorio has no intention of playing square and stabs Argentero in front of henchman Massimo De Santis and plaything Alice Pagani while gloating that his wife was killed by a client months ago and that he has only missed her because she made him lots of money. However, rather than finishing off Argentero with a single bullet De Santis kicks him down a remote country slope and leaves him to take his chances.

Ferrara also has woman troubles, as he discovers that his girlfriend has a mixed-race daughter. However, he impresses Andrea Carpenzano, Stefano Rabatti and Davide Argenti - the three buddies living in his nan's old flat - by taking them to Bellè's place to prove that he slept with her. She is amused by his cheek and tells his pals that he was sensational (when he had been anything but) and he whoops the night away in a club before returning home to find that his friends have planned an armoured car robbery and need him to act as the getaway driver, as he had done on the raid that had landed him in jail. They promise that they will reward him for not ratting on him by giving him enough cash to fly to a country without an extradition treaty.

Meanwhile, Amendola learns that 20 year-old son Simone Liberati is dealing on a patch belonging to the vicious Ivan Franek and he despairs over lunch with wife Alessandra Roca that Liberati is trying to use his fearsome reputation to protect himself. Roca is furious with Amendola for glamorising crime and for setting Liberati a bad example by fraternising with Franek before he was slammed away 17 years earlier. So, Amendola smashes the stone plinth on which Roca stands a statue of the Virgin Mary and hauls out a case containing two pistols. He wakes Liberati before dawn and drives him to a long tunnel in the middle of nowhere. Forcing him to choose a gun (only one of which is loaded), Amendola orders him to pull the trigger to prove what kind of a man he is, as he would have had no hesitation in shooting his own father. But Liberati hasn't the killer instinct and Amendola embraces him and urges him not to try and emulate him, as he fires the bullet from his gun.

As Amendola returns some stolen drugs and money to Franek at his meat warehouse, he reminds him of the time he shot a chiselling sidekick for disrespecting him and is scathing of Amendola's request to spare Liberati the same fate. Bellè also has some harsh words for Sperli when she returns from her business trip. She is hoping to persuade a judge to release her daughter into house arrest, but Bellè wants money to flit abroad, as she has endured a nightmare since she was arrested for trying to smuggle 10 kilos of cocaine into Italy from Brazil. She accuses Sperli of caring more about her fortune than her child and storms off with a necklace and a ring in the hope of raising her air fare. But the pawnbroker refuses to go above €15,000 and Bellè returns them to her mother before making a tearful apology on her shoulder.

Meanwhile, Argentero has staggered to an abandoned farmhouse, where he patches up his gaping wound with gaffer tape and scoffs a mouthful of stale bread. He starts to plan his revenge, while Amendola sends Roca and Liberati to friends in Milan to begin again. Replacing the Virgin statue on its plinth, he cleans his guns and waits for Franek to make his move.

Ferrara is also getting ready for the robbery and is filling up the car when he finds a cocktail umbrella in his pocket from the drink that Bellè bought him. He goes to the villa and persuades her to eat with him. As they scarf junk food at a roadside kiosk, he tells her that he has no intention of going back to jail and takes her to a classical garden by moonlight and reveals that he has been studying garden design while inside. He explains the symbolism of the layout and they kiss after she recites a verse from the Song of Solomon.

Their tenderness contrasts starkly with the vulgarity of Iuorio, as he forces himself on Pagani. But Argentero exploits the fact he is distracted to sneak into his compound and decks him with a single punch when Iuorio opens the door. Urging Pagani to vanish, Argentero turns the signet ring on his right fist and tells Iuorio to pray to his saints before killing him with a single blow. Amendola has less luck, however, as while he guns down two of Franek's goons, he is caught off guard by his erstwhile partner in crime, who has no compunction in shooting him dead beside the glowing halo of the Marian statue. As Argentero staggers to the water's edge on the beach abutting Iuorio's hideout, Ferrara and Bellè return to the prison, as they now have something to live for.

Nimbly edited by Roberto Siciliano to keep the audience interested in each of the four storylines concocted by Amendola and co-scenarists Giancarlo De Cataldo and Roberto Iannone, this is a slick entertainment that riffs on the themes of honour among thieves, doing one's time and learning from past mistakes without offering any profound insights into contemporary Italian society. The odd background detail is revealed as the narratives unfold, but we never get to know why Argentero is inside or why his wife wound up in the clutches of the revolting Iuorio. Similarly, Bellè's involvement with a drug gang is left unexplained apart from a reference to the widowed Sperli denying the spoilt little rich girl her inheritance. Yet, even though we learn a little bit more about Amendola and Ferrara's crimes, they remain sketches rather than fully fleshed characters, even after it becomes clear that each has put the past behind him. Consequently, the viewer comes to care about their plight through the strength of the performances rather than the potency of the writing.

Cinematographer Maurizio Calvesi makes unfussy use of his diverse locations, while production designer Paki Meduri ably contrasts the different domiciles. Composer Paolo Vivaldi also contributes an agile score that reflects the shifts between the noirish aspects of Ferrara and Bellè's plotlines and the urban Western feel of Argentero and Amendola's showdowns. So, while this lacks the necessary narrative depth, it holds the attention in demonstrating the redemptive power of love.

Frustratingly few Swiss features reach British screens. So, we should be grateful that Rolando Colla's breezy, but slight romcom, 7 Days, follows Claude Barras's charming animation, My Life As a Courgette, into selected cinemas. Making his fifth feature, the Italian-speaking Colla received UK festival play for his Tuscan coming-of-age saga, Summer Games (2011), which launched his partnership with cinematographer Lorenz Merz, who returns in tandem with Gabriel Lobos to make the most of the stunning Sicilian island scenery. But, as in that genial kidpic, Colla here proves better at storytelling than character analysis, with the consequence that this adult rite of passage glistens on the surface while offering insufficient depth.

Recovering addicts-cum-alcoholics Marc Barbé and Linda Olsansky have decided to get married on a small Sicilian island with a population of just 26 people. They have asked his botanist brother, Bruno Todeschini, and her costume-designing best friend, Alessia Barela, to make the arrangements. But it soon becomes clear that the lighthouse where Barbé wants to spend his last night as a bachelor is uninhabitable, while the hotel where they plan to hold the reception is a dump.

Determined to give Olsansky her special day, Barela scolds Todeschini for being so negative and for making his dismay so plain to the locals, even after they give them a rendition of the folk song they plan to sing at the reception. Over supper, she asks why he is so hostile to Barbé and he complains that he refuses to face facts. But Barela shames him by revealing that he wants to stay in a lighthouse because he vowed to kick heroin in one and regards it as a symbol of bright beginnings. They patch things up during a late-night swim in the pool, however, and fall asleep with a sense that their mission might not be so impossible after all.

The following morning, Todeschini fills a bucket in the crystal clear bay and finds some rare flowers en route to the lighthouse. While he makes a start on tidying up, Barela gets to know the elderly hotel manager, Aurora Quattrocchi, and her sons Fabrizio Pizzuto and Gianluca Spaziani, who has Down Syndrome. After lunch, she cycles across the island and joins Todeschini on the lamp balcony, where he proceeds to kiss her and declare that he is getting to like her. They stop to kiss again after riding past a flock of sheep on a bumpy, dusty road. The wind whistles through the thistles and tufted grass, as well as through Todeschini's thinning hair, as their lips touch. But she turns down his invitation to eat in his room and cycles off alone, leaving Todeschini to play pinball after having a tetchy conversation with agent Vincent Held over an article he is writing.

As the third day dawns, Barela and Todeschini go shopping and cause an argument between shopkeeper Benedetto Raneli and wife Carmela Conti over who keeps the money. They take a boat trip around the island and dive to see some ancient artifacts buried in the sea bed. As they lie on the beach, Todeschini and Barela kiss again and he suggests that they have a three-day affair and then break it off when the wedding guests arrive and never see each other again. Concerned because she has a long-term partner and a teenage daughter, Barela agrees when Todeschini declares that time kills love and that they will be able to enjoy full-flight passion without any of the comedown.

They hurry back to the hotel to find Quattrocchi presiding over a friend sheep's blood party for her neighbours. As they eat, she asks Todeschini whether he's married and she reveals that she had the last laugh on her unfaithful husband, as she got to bury him while still his wife. Eager to be alone, Barela and Todeschini make their excuses, but they have barely undressed before the maid comes to clean the room and he skulks away to work on his article. He goes for a walk and returns to find Barela missing from her room and is delighted to discover her asleep in his bed. He wakes her and they make love.

Canoodling in the shower the following morning, the lovers chase each other to the bed and fall about in hysterical laughter. However, Todeschini is stung when Barbé and Olsansky mention Gianfelice Imparato and Fiorella Campanella during a Skype chat and Barela and he demands to know whether Barela is still in love or is too scared to end a relationship that is cosy rather than exciting. She insists things are fine and that Todeschini has no right to be jealous because he was the one who wanted a quick fling. He asks her to phone Imparato so he can hear how she talks to him. But he calls back while they are carrying the mattress they have been to fetch from a neighbouring island and she snaps at him when he suggests coming a day early. Todeschini dares Barela to admit that she wants to break up with Imparato, but she bites back that he is incapable of love and he tosses the bed frame off the cliff in frustration.

Barela ignores Todeschini as he calls to her from the boat, as she strides back to the hotel. As he reaches the bay, however, he sees a funeral procession and Raneli beckons him to follow. He asks after Barela and suggests that he chews slowly on two sage leaves to quell his anger. The old man asks Todeschini for one of his cigarettes, only to have a wheezing fit and Todeschini watches with a mixture of regret and envy as Conti holds his hand while he straps on an oxygen mask. He Skypes old flame Christine Citti and asks why he is incapable of sustaining relationships and she informs him that he is weak, while being surprised by how emotional he seems. Coming down to the dining-room, he sits away from Barela and asks Quattrocchi for two sage leaves. He notices a young girl at another table watching him and he jumps up to talk to Barela as she finishes her meal. But she is furious with him for wanting her to destroy a 15-year partnership for three days of no-strings sex.

However, when Todeschini corners Barela on the ferry to Trapani the next day, she allows him to accompany her while she finds musicians and a shop that sells sugared almonds. They dance to an accordion and kiss passionately in a stairwell and Todeschini admits that he needs her and can't stand the thought of returning to his old life. Tumbling into bed in the nearest hotel, they spend the afternoon getting to know each other and she teases him about knowing when love dies and not having a clue about keeping it alive. Yet, during the voyage back to the island, Barela drops the bombshell that she can't leave Imparato, as he helped her win back custody of her two year-old daughter after she had been dealing drugs and owes him too much to walk away on a whim. So, Todeschini opts out of their last night together and goes to the lighthouse to repair the beacon.

The following morning, he helps the locals empty the schoolroom that is no longer needed now that all the children have left. He showers and joins Barela on the jetty to greet the bride and groom and their guests. Imparato introduces himself and Todeschini hugs parents Armen Godel and Laurence Montandon. Barbé wants to show Olsansky the lighthouse and they drive across the island, while Barela goes to her room with Imparato. Barbé is delighted with the canopy that Todeschnini has made for his bed and informs his brother than Olsansky is pregnant. Back at the hotel, Olsansky asks Barela what has been going on with Todeschini and refuses to believe her when she denies all.

As the village choir sings, the wedding party is rowed out into the bay in a flotilla of little boats. Todeschini films with his camera, as Barbé and Oslansky beam with happiness. He also applauds when Imparato recites a poem by Pablo Neruda, but Campanella insists on taking his picture when they return to the long table laid out on the waterfront. Godel asks Todeschini why he never found a girl to marry and Imparato notices Barela shoot fleeting glances at a man clearly holding back the pain. The musicians play and the string of lights hanging over the jetty begin to twinkly in the dusk, as Oslansky thanks everyone for making their day perfect.

When darkness falls, Todeschini projects a short film tribute to the newlyweds on to the whitewashed wall of a fisherman's cottage and the guests bop along to `Human Fly'' by The Cramps. A wedding cake with sparklers at the corners of the platter is carried in and the higgledy-piggledy buildings look sublime from offshore, as everyone dances and celebrates love and life. But Todeschini has made up his mind to leave the island with the magicians at the end of the party and Barela barely lets a flicker of emotion escape as she turns on her heel and walks away.

After Barbé and Oslansky leave for the lighthouse, Barela helps Quattrocchi clear away. Imparato wants to go to bed, but Barela insists on a moment with Todeschini. He asks her to walk him to the boat, but she tells him to leave and not look back if he loves her. As the last day breaks, he wanders through the village and steps on to the gangplank. Without turning his head, he ducks into the cabin and waits for the engine to start. After a while, he ventures on to the deck and is relieved to see Barela sitting on the opposite side, as the screen cuts to black.

Few will be surprised by the ending, but not many will be entirely convinced by it, as Colla and co-scenarists Olivier Lorelle, Nicole Borgeat and Héloïse Adam never persuade us that Barela is unhappy enough with Imparato to take a risk on a self-centred stranger like Todeschini. It's not as if he bowls her over with charm, as he makes his proposal with indecent haste and then sulks like a child whenever he doesn't get his own way. He also offers Barela a distinctly sketchy future, as even though he is based at the University of Grenoble, he is clearly no bargain in the stability stakes. But, with the majority of movies being about happy endings rather than happy ever afters, Colla is able to send the audience home with a soppy sense of well-being.

If the storyline and characterisation are superficial and the dialogue a touch trite, the visuals are a delight, with Merz and Lobos making evocative use of the rugged Levanzo scrubland and its glorious port. They even throw in some shimmering underwater sequences and a number of poignant close-ups of touching hands. Production designer Marcello di Carlo adds to the fairytale feel with the transformation of the lighthouse and the lighting of the reception after the floating nuptials. Bernd Schurer's music further enhances the aura of authenticity. But the recitation of Neruda's `Where Can Guillermina Be?' feels like a calculating allusion to Michael Radford's Il Postino (1994), especially as Todeschini and Barela get nowhere near the romantic nuance that Massimo Troisi and Maria Grazia Cucinotta achieved on the Sicilian islands of Pollara and Procida.

Once upon a time, there were books for children. Now, publishers have hit upon the concept of Young Adult literature, although critics can't seem to decide what counts as `teen', `Young Adult' and `New Adult' fiction. Readers also refuse to remain within the age perameters, with adults being responsible for buying over half of the juvenile titles currently on the shelves. All of which makes it difficult for film-makers adapting YA bestsellers to know how to pitch their adaptations. Will those purchasing fantasy-tinged fare by the likes of Suzanne Collins, Stephene Meyer and Cassandra Claire, for example, want to see a 15 certificate movie or will they demand something more grown-up? This is the problem facing Jakob M. Erwa in bringing Andreas Steinhofel's acclaimed 1998 YA novel, Centre of My World, to the screen and it's one he singularly fails to solve.

The tone is set early on, as 17 year-old Phil (Louis Hoffmann) returns from a three-week French camp to find a storm has wrought havoc on his provincial German town and the large house named Visible he stares with his mother, Glass (Sabine Timoteo), and his adored twin sister, Dianne (Ada Philine Stappenbeck). A twee montage of illustrative images accompanies Phil's voiceover, as he sets the scene during a car journey back from the station with neighbour Tereza (Inka Friedrich). Glass has cooked a special lunch, but Dianne is too busy to eat and Phil suspects that the storm is not the only seismic thing to have happened in his absence.

When they were flaxen-haired children, Phil (Bendix Hansen) and Dianne (Sarah Fuhrer) had been curious about the identify of the father Glass never spoke about. She had arrived in Germany from the United States while pregnant and had been a fun, if scatty mother. More montages of random images hint at the steady flow of boyfriends, but Dianne finds a dated list of Glass's lovers in her dressing-table drawer and does a quick bit of maths to deduce a prime suspect in the paternity stakes. But, while Phil is prepared to go along with whatever the capriciously free-spirited Glass does, the tweenage Dianne rolls her eyes in disapproval at antics like driving around a roundabout beeping the horn and exploiting people to get what she wants. However, even she likes Kyle (Clemens Rehbein), who seems like a keeper because he takes them seriously.

Following a blizzard of text and voicemail messages, Phil hooks up with pink-haired gal pal Katja (Svenja Jung), who takes him shopping in a vintage clothing store before they return home to cover their faces in honey and hundreds and thousands for some selfies (they're how old again?). But, when he gets home to have a late-night chat with his sister, he finds that she has climbed out of her bedroom window and refuses to talk about her midnight flit the next morning. However, he forgets all his other problems the moment newcomer Nicholas (Jannik Schümann) walks into the classroom and Phil's world suddenly takes on a deep red tint until Katja clicks her fingers to bring him back to reality. He is soon off into another reverie, however, as he flashes back to the day Glass told him she was pregnant and he dropped his snow globe on bumping into a beautiful boy outside the supermarket. Now, after all these years, he knows his name.

Phil starts hanging out at the school running track to watch Nicholas train and is overwhelmed when he bumps into him in a grocery shop and he asks him to wait for him the next time he comes to watch. A cutaway to crumbling ice caps and raging fires is accompanied by pulsating rock music in order to convey the impassive Phil's inner surge of emotions, as a sly wink over the shoulder confirms that he's in love, despite Katja's warning that something about Nicholas doesn't add up. As he cycles home through the woods with a silly grin on his face, he imagines himself pirouetting topless as golden confetti rains down on him. But he doesn't tell Katja about his crush because she can be possessive.

The same can't be said of Glass, who had throw Kyle out shortly after he had made Dianne a bow and arrow that she treasured. She resents her mother for making decisions that impact on her life and Phil convinces himself that something must have happened while he was in France to further drive wedge between them. He recalls the night Glass lost her baby and Dianne stayed with her while Tereza had tried to reassure him by saying that one of the good things about living in a big house was the ability to lock fears in empty rooms. However, she had warned him not to throw away the key and this advice comes on top of Teacher Hänel (Thomas Goritzki) telling the class that distance is sometimes needed in order to gain a better perspective.

Ignoring Glass's warning about falling in love too soon, Phil cycles home in a daze after slow-motion, soft-focus shower sex with Nicholas. He keeps the news from his mother and sister and best friend, but does tell Tereza and her lesbian partner Pasal (Nina Proll) and they give him the keys to their shed so that they have somewhere to tryst. However, Glass tells new carpenter boyfriend Michael (Sascha Alexander Geršak) that her son is gay and dating someone and Phil is surprisingly at ease with his inquiries after a disastrous fish soup supper. Dianne is less impressed with the newcomer, however, as Glass will only dispose of him when she gets bored and Phil remembers asking his mother about the centre of the world and her replying that it changes for everyone and depends on where one is standing and what one is looking at.

Armed with such a pearl of wisdom, Phil agrees to let Nicholas meet Glass and she seems to approve. Up in his room, Phil feels a pang of insecurity that is assuaged by a montage of famous people who grew up without a father. But his mood is popped when Nicholas makes a feeble excuse and Phil isn't sure hes made the right decision when he tells Katja about his romance and she promises to try and like Nicolas, even though she resents having to share him. A madcap sequence of jerky handheld selfie footage shows the trio fooling around by the lake and plunging into the water before sunbathing on the jetty.

But the idyll is soon shattered when Dianne gets arrested with her friend Kora (Milena Cestao Kolbowski) for supposedly turning a dog against its owner. Glass refuses to go to the police station and Michael and Tereza are left to bail her out. Phil recalls a childhood night when Dianne stood on the roof and summoned a cloud of insects around her in the moonlight and he knows she has a power over animals. But she closes the door on him when he asks if she is guilty and why things have changed between them and he is uncertain whether to blame Glass or Dianne for the breakdown in their relationship. He is also perplexed when he follows Dianne one night and she cycles to a nearby hospital and is angry with him for snooping.

Moving into Terezas shed because he can't stand the atmosphere at home, Phil becomes even more deflated when Nicholas brings Katja to their bolthole and then flirts with her. He is also hurt by Nicholas's indifference when he tells him he loves him for the first time. Pascal suggests that Nicholas's inaccessibility is part of his charm. But he atones by showing Phil the shed in his garden where he keeps the treasures that others have discarded. He also gets closer to Michael and they build a wall cabinet together in the workshop, only for Phil to smash it when he sees Nicholas and Katja having sex in his treasure trove.

Sulking on Tereza's sofa, Phil refuses to speak to Katja or his mother. So, Tereza reminds him of the anger-filled room and informs him that he will only get to see the house at its beautiful best if he goes through the rooms he had closed off. This risibly platitudinous declaration rouses Phil from his torpor and he returns home. However, he demands that Glass explains the reason for her breach with Dianne and she alludes to an album of pressed flowers and leaves and this clues him (via a gnomic flashback) that something has happened to Glass involving belladonna. He cycles to the hospital, where he finds Dianne in an empty waiting-room. She confesses to making belladonna tea to poison Glass because she felt she didn't deserve to keep Kyle's baby after sending him away. But she has been punished, as her secret boyfriend, Jan (Can Bulut), wound up in a coma after he was hit by a falling tree during the storm when cycling to see her.

Dianne takes Phil to Jan's room, where she reveals that she told Glass about what she had done when she mentioned having a child with Michael. They hug tearfully and he urges her to come home. With truth suddenly in vogue, Phil confronts Nicholas about sleeping with Katja and he breaks up with him because he can't tolerate a ménage. Yet, when Glass throws a party to wish Phil bon voyage on his impulsive trip to the States to see if he can find his father, Nicholas leaves the snow globe lost all those years before on the doorstep. That night, Glass sits on Phil's bed and tells him that his father has Dianne's empathy with wildlife, but withholds his name. However, she whispers it on the station platform as she waves him off on the train and Phil reveals in voiceover that the people who matter will always be at the centre of his world and that he is ready to open the doors and let out the rage.

Veering between fairy tale and soap opera, this fussily directed homage to André Téchiné and Xavier Dolan reflects the fact that Jakob Ewra has been longing to adapt Steinhofel's tome since he first read it. Every idea he seems to have had about bringing the pages alive have been stuffed indiscriminately into this unremittingly melodramatic wallow that is made all the more intolerable by the simpering performance of Louis Hofmann, the saccharine girliness of Svenja Jung, the drop-dead inertia of Jannik Schümann and the self-centred eccentricity of Sabine Timoteo.

The script drips with cornball aphorisms and portentous pronouncements, but its biggest failing is its falling domino approach to storytelling, as each contrived incident is followed instantly by the next with no pause for the audience to assimilate or assess. Editor Karlotta Kittel must share some of the blame for this, but the fault lies with Erwa as both writer and director, as he strains to convey the shattering significance of every second of life within Visible. Inka Friedrich and Ada Philine Stappenbeck dial down the dah-dah-dahness of the dialogue, while cinematographer The Chau Ngo makes neat contrasts between the storm-blasted woodland, the rambling house and the cosy sheds designed by Veronika Merlin.

Erwa's confidence in the material is as touching as his commitment to such gimmicky tropes as jump cuts, flashbacks, slo-mo fantasy sequences, video selfies and photomontages, which are supposed to capture the intoxication of first love. But what most does for this flamboyantly over-plotted picture are the fortune cookie philosophising, the threadbare characterisation and the tonal lurches between kitsch and calamity. At one point during her impromptu fashion show, Phil tells Katja that `a little less would be fine'. What a pity Ewra didn't take his advice.

American film-makers have long struggled to tackle Christian themes with any freedom, as they have always been so conscious of a Bible Belt backlash. Director Jon Gunn and screenwriter Brian Bird are the latest to let their trepidation get the better of them in adapting journalist Lee Strobel's autobiographical bestseller, The Case for Christ. To a degree, they are hampered by the inevitability of the story's outcome. But, as in one of Cecil B. DeMille's infamous saucy silents, in which no sin depicted in gleeful detail went unpunished, so every doubt is assuaged in a Damascene odyssey that will have even the most fervent evangelical blushing with embarrassment.

As the title credits role, Gunn and Bird present us with a thumbnail account of how Lee Strobel (Mike Vogel) came to be married to Leslie (Erika Christensen) and legal affairs editor at the Chicago Tribune in 1980. He toasts facts at a celebration party in the office before taking the heavily pregnant Leslie and their young daughter Alison (Haley Rosenwasser) to dinner. However, the girl chokes on a gumball and is saved by African-American nurse Alfie (L. Scott Caldwell), who tells Leslie that God had urged her to go to that restaurant because He knew He would have a purpose for her. Leslie is piqued when the atheist Lee tells Alison at bedtime that Jesus is like a fairy-tale character and they argue about whether divine providence or coincidence brought Alfie into their lives.

Lee has just published a new book and is put out when no-nonsense black editor Joe Dubois (Frankie Faison) order him to investigate the shooting of cop Joseph Koblinsky (Judd Lormand) by gang member James Hicks (Renell Gibbs). However, Leslie hides the fact that she has been to church with Alfie and been touched by the preacher's assurance that God has the love and patience to wait for people to come to Him. But she feels so moved after her second visit that she tells Lee and he is so angry with her for letting emotion overcome reason that he stalks out of the kitchen `to file a missing person's report'.

Unsure how to approach the subject without alienating Leslie, Lee consults mentor Ray Nelson (Brett Rice), who had used the writings of Bertrand Russell to prevent his daughter from being born again. He recommends finding fact that undermine the logic of the Christian narrative and believer workmate Kenny London (Mike Pniewski) jokingly suggests that his best hope lies in disproving the historical fact of the Resurrection.

This mission takes Lee to Wisconsin to hear a lecture by New Testament expert Gary Halbermas (Kevin Sizemore), who informs him that 500 people are reported to have seen Jesus Christ alive after the Crucifixion and their testimonies in nine sources outside scripture date months after the event and should, therefore, be treated as eyewitnesses not rumourmongers. When Lee claims that their faith meant they could not be objective, Halbermas cites Saul of Tarsus who became the evangelising apostle Paul after his conversion. He also mocks the notion that the martyrs in Roman times would have been willing to lay down their lives for a hoax. Halbermas admits that he started to believe after losing his wife to cancer and took solace in the certainty of seeing her again after his own death. But, when Lee questions whether he is merely being hopefully sentimental, Halbermas retorts that `truth reminds us of what is really important' and Lee nods as if to confirm that such proof is incontrovertible. Rushing home when his pager informs him that Leslie is going into labour, Lee meets his son and grimaces when Alison says that she prayed her mother would be okay. He refuses to contact his estranged parents about the birth and devotes himself to turning a basement storeroom into a command centre for his Christ quest. However, he also pays lip service to the story Dubois told him to cover by going to the local jail and interviewing Hicks, whose fuzzy story and lengthy rap sheet convinces Lee that he must be guilty, even though there are no hard facts on which to base his rushed judgement.

Stung by a message on the bathroom mirror about God's love, Lee goes to see Fr José Maria Marquez (Miguel Pérez), a renowned archaeologist-turned-priest, who explains that there are four times more authenticated manuscipts (5843) of the Greek version of the New Testament than there are of the Iliad, with the earliest dating from 2nd century Egypt. As they walk through the church, Lee sees a reproduction of the Turin Shroud and asks why the Son of God would allow himself to be killed rather than use his powers to confound his enemies and Marquez responds with one word: `Love.'

A montage to some soft rock shows Lee bashing away on his typewriter, pinning cuttings to his wall display and scrawling notes on a white board. But he is getting nowhere fast and has a drunken row with Leslie at 3am, in which he accuses her of cheating on him with Jesus. He then locks horns during a phone call to Jerusalem with Dr William Craig (Rus Blackwell), who shoots down his theory that Christ's body was fed to the dogs and not placed in a tomb and that the accounts of seeing Him risen were given by women, who were regarded as notoriously unreliable by Jewish historians. When Lee points out inconsistencies in the gospel story of the empty tomb, Craig says the core story remains the same and that would satisfy most cops taking statements. He questions whether Lee wants the truth or his version of it and suggests that he will have to reach a point at which enough evidence is enough.

This glib remark momentarily stops Lee in his tracks and he turns his attention to the Kublinsky-Hicks story. On checking the rap sheets, he sees that the cop arrested the gang member six times and deduces that Hicks is a police informant and that the Chicago PD is protecting him. Lee uses his contacts within the force to get confirmation and Dubois runs the front-page splash. But the success makes him cocky and he warns Alfie to stop brainwashing his wife and when parents Walt (Robert Forster) and Lorena (Cindy Hogen) come to see baby Kyle, he is openly rude to them. In keeping with his new-found smugness, he also snipes at Hicks when he is sentenced to 15 years and tuts when he claims he had no option but to plea bargain after his fallacious story sold him out. However, he saves his worst for a romantic night out with Leslie, which culminates in the car with him informing her that he hates what she is becoming and can't accept a faith based on feelings not facts and refuses to believe her assertion that she loves him more since finding Jesus.

While Leslie seeks comfort with Alfie, who promises her that God will soften Lee's heart, he decides that the 500 witnesses who saw the resurrected Christ were suffering from mass psychosis and makes an appointment to see psychologist Roberta Waters (Faye Dunaway). She is agnostic, but claims that 500 people having the same dream would be a bigger miracle than the Resurrection itself and Lee is frustrated that he can't chip away at any so-called `fact' related to Christ rising from the dead. As he goes to leave, Waters asks about his relationship with his father and, when he admits that it's stained, she suggests that the `father wound' is preventing him from recognising God as a loving father. He smiles politely and states that the problem lies with his wife not his father before strutting away.

Having been dismayed by the sight of Leslie being baptised in the river, Lee snaps back into journalist mode when Kublinsky comes to thank him for sending Hicks away and reveals that he has bullet fragments in his spleen. On looking at the shirt he was wearing when he was shot, however, Lee deduces that Kublinsky was wounded by an illegal gun pen in his shirt pocket and he contacts Hicks's lawyer to apply for a mistrial. But Dubois is furious with him for allowing Kublinsky to play him because his mind wasn't on the job and he returns home drunk to shout at Leslie and Alison before flying out to California to meet with pathologist Alexander Metherell (Tom Nowicki) to posit the theory (shared with the Koran) that Christ was taken down from the cross before he died and was patched up by some of his followers before he was presented to his disciples as `resurrected'.

As Lee takes notes and wrinkles his nose in annoyance, Metherell reveals with amusing condescension that the scourging alone would have left him close to death from blood loss (hence the falls on the way to Calvary) and too weak to survive for long the agony of fighting for breath on the cross. When Lee suggests the centurions weren't doctors and might have made a mistake in pronouncing him dead, Metherell reminds him that they would have been executed if a prisoner had escaped. But the clincher that Christ died is the mix of blood and water that seeped out from the spear wound, as such fluids are consistent with death by asphyxiation and could not be faked.

Leaving the hospital in a funk because modern medicine supports what he claims is ancient hokum, Lee is paged by Leslie, who breaks the news that his father has died. After the funeral, he finds the cuttings scrapbook his father kept and turns the pages sobbing. Then, on the way home, the radio news broadcasts that Hicks has been rushed to hospital after being badly beaten in hospital. He goes to his bedside to apologise for missing the truth, but the injured man whispers that he never wanted to find it. Lee realises this is true of his pursuit of the historical Christ and Nelson suggests that even non-believers need to take a leap of faith because its impossible to prove or disprove that Jesus was the Son of God who conquered death. London also loses his temper with him and orders Lee to stop bellyaching about Christianity and stop blaming others for the fact that he can't make up his mind.

After a long dark night of the soul, in which voices from his inquiry chatter in his head and we are treated to a montage of images and marker pen conclusions, Lee admits God has won. He drives home to tell Leslie what he has been doing and he concedes that her faith stacks up. Moreover, the love she continued to show him while he was being so unreasonable gave him tangible proof that God was working though her to save him. They kiss and kneel together for him to pray. He writes a book about his journey and a closing caption states that his 20 times on his faith have sold over 14 million copies.

We also see photos of the real Leslie and Lee (who never seems to sport the kind of moustache that James Franco also wore in The Vault), as we learn that he became a pastor at Willow Creek Community Church in 1987 and he has since dedicated his life to converting others. Alison also writes novels pointing people to Christ, while Kyle became a theologian and seminary professor with several learned tracts to his name.

Strobel is now Professor of Christian Thought at Houston Baptist University in Texas and a pastor at Woodlands Church. But, while no one could doubt for a second the sincerity of those responsible for his biopic, it's difficult to see this as anything other than a glorified teleplay that charts one man's path to the Lord without producing more than a few scraps of sketchily scripted evidence. Doubtless, Strobel's book made the case for Christ with greater intellectual rigour and trenchancy, but Gunn's film is simplistic and mawkish.

Mike Vogel does a decent job of portraying the sceptical Strobel as a jackass, while Erika Christensen strains every sinew to appear devoted and devout. But even talents like Faye Dunaway and Robert Forster are stymied by a screenplay that reduces everything to quip or a platitude. Will Musser gloopy score hardly helps, while Brian Shanley's photography does scant justice to Mitchell Crisp and Dana Konick's décor and costumes. Obviously, everyone means well. But surely there are better ways of cine-proselytising than this?

Born in Bradford, raised in Nottingham and resident in London, Sarmad Masud made a little bit of screen history this week when his debut, My Pure Land, became the first Urdu feature to represent Britain in the Best Foreign Film category at the Academy Awards. There's no guarantee the picture will be selected, as Masud know only too well, as the excellent Two Dosas (2014) failed to make the last five for Best Short Film. However, this is a magnificent achievement for a low-budget project that draws on the true story of Nazo Dharejo, the teenager who fought an heroic rearguard against an avaricious uncle and his bandit horde in Pakistan's south-eastern Sindh Province in 1992.

Following a series of captions revealing that land disputes are prevalent in Pakistan and that courts are often reluctant to grant women ownership against a male claimant, we see a car speeding towards the house where 18 year-old Nazo Dharejo (Suhaee Abro) lives with her 16 year-old sister, Saeda (Eman Malik), their mother, Waderi (Razia Malik), and 20 year-old Zulfiqar (Tayyab Ifzal), who is a friend of the family. Rushing to the trunks in which they keep their AK-47s, Nazo and Saeda prepare to confront their uncle, Mehrban (Ahsen Murad), who insists that they vacate the property he covets.

Nazo accompanies Waderi to the gate, where they defiantly reject Mehrban's spurious claim. However, a gun battle breaks out after Saeda accidentally fires at one of her uncle's henchmen. But Nazo knows exactly what she is doing when one of the thugs (Abdul Qadir) scales the perimeter wall and breaks into a downstairs room. Indeed, no sooner has she shot him in the leg than she steals his pistol and rejoins her mother and sister.

Not all encounters on this road have been so bloody, however, as Nazo and Saeda (dressed as boys) once stood firm against another approaching vehicle, only for its driver to burst past them and rush to the roof of the house to let off fireworks. They smile because their father, Khuda Baksh (Syed Tanveer Hussain), is home. But he ticks them off for letting him past and warns them that this land represents their honour as well as their future and that they should be prepared to defend it at all costs. Waderi bemoans the fact Khuda Baksh has turned his daughters into tomboys and cautions Nazo against becoming unruly.

But, as Mehrban summons reinforcements, Waderi is grateful that her children have been taught how to defend themselves and show such cool courage under fire. She sends Nazo to fetch more bullets and she flashes back to brother Sikander (Atif Akhtar Bhatti) telling her off for mooching in his room. Zulfiqur is his friend and he keeps watch at the window as Mehrban scrambles to the boot of his car to fetch more ammunition. He also thinks back to the funeral when he had last seen Khuda Baksh and had vowed to make him pay for being their father's favourite. Now, he comes out from cowering to greet the local police chief (Malik Aslam), who rolls up in a jeep and leaves Waderi and her daughters in no doubt that they can expect no protection from the guardians of law and order.

As the cop drives away, Mehrban calls out to his in-laws that no one will come to save them. But Nazo opens fire and sends him scurrying for cover. She thinks back to the confrontation after the funeral when Mehrban had knelt beside the family car and demanded that Khuda Baksh leave the house. However, he had refused to abandon an edifice he had helped to build with his own hands and had reminded his sibling that it will be bequeathed to his children and their heirs. Shaking his bald head, Mehrban had informed Khuda Baksh that he would only have himself to blame for the ordeal that was about to befall him.

This soon came to pass, as the corrupt police chief had arrested Khuda Baksh and had mocked his insistence that Merhban was trying to evict him from his own property. He had also taunted him through the bars that Sikander will soon be joining him and Khuda Baksh had urged Nazo and Saeda to hurry home after they had brought him food because their mother should not be left alone to defend the homestead. Nazo had been concerned by her fathers cough, but he had reassured her that he was fine and that they should sit tight and not waste money on a lawyer because Mehrban would simply bribe the officials.

Watching over the parapet, Nazo sees her uncle ride off on the back of a motorbike to get reinforcements and notices that he has left a weapon and some ammunition in the open boot of his car. She thinks back to earlier in the day when Saeda had teased her about her desire to learn English and travel, as she now wonders whether she will realise any of her dreams. But Nazo is made of stern stuff and she asks Saeda and Zulfiqar to create a diversion while she sneaks out to the car to steal Mehrban's machine-gun. Using the cows for cover, she reaches the vehicle and is able to steal a weapon from one of the henchmen after he rushes to help the comrade whom Nazo had wounded in the leg.

Breathing heavily, Nazo regains her composure, as Zulfiqar brandishes one of the purloined guns. However, her mind drifts off to the night Sikander was dragged into the police station and beaten while being accused of killing a girl he didn't even know. Khuda Baksh had watched through the bars of his cell, as his son was shot in a sideroom and left for dead. At that instant, he had thought back to the day Sikander had posed for a photograph to help him find a bride and he had insisted on smiling for the camera.

Nazo and Saeda come to visit their father and find him slumped in a corner of his cell. When they ask what is wrong with him, Nazo sees the police chief chatting cheerfully on the phone about having to shoot an unruly suspect and she barges into the room to find her brother's bleeding corpse on the floor. Saeda rushes to her sister's side and they sob for the lost innocent. But Khuda Baksh describes the murder as God's will and scolds Nazo when she says this butchery has nothing to do with religion. He tells the girls to stop crying and act as his sons rather than his daughters. Furthermore, he implores them not to shed a single tear when they bury him, as they will have to show no signs of weakness if they are to dissuade Merhban from trying to intimidate them.

Steeling herself, Nazo shouts to the two men left in the field and offers them the chance to flee with impunity. Yet, as she and Zulfiqar escort them off the premises, they see reinforcements speeding along the dusty road and she jumps on the back of Zulfiqar's so they can barricade themselves inside the house. As they plan their next move, we flash back to a meeting between Khuda Baksh, Mehrban and Ahmad (Ghulam Muhammed Khan Naizi), a village elder, who is trying to settle the dispute between the siblings, even though he states that it's difficult to intervene before at least two people are killed in any related violence. Moreover, as they were the first-born sons of different mothers, he is unable to make a decisive judgement and this doubt allows Mehrban to stake his claim with a degree of strained legitimacy.

As he leaves the meeting (which had broken up when the police chief had arrived to show his support for Mehrban), Khuda Baksh had bumped into the leader of a bandit horde (Abbas Ali), who had offered to teach Mehrban a lesson. Yet, now, he sells his services to Mehrban and derides him for being unable to seize a property being held by a handful of women. He swears he will defeat them, but warns Mehrban that he might not be able to prevent his man from raping Waderi and her daughters.

Trying to remain the dutiful wife, Waderi had taken food to the cells to feed Khuda Baksh. She had sold a cow to pay for a lawyer and had wanted permission to sell some land to bribe a judge. But her spouse had reminded her that the soil was without price and he had similarly scolded Hamzah (Ishtiaq Ahmad), a teenage boy sharing his cell who had offered to instruct his gang to protect his family in return for his car. Suffering from an increasingly debilitating illness, Khuda Baksh had ticked off the youth for forgetting his upbringing. He spots a pigeon waddling across the floor and is reminded of his attempts to teach Nazo some Islamic parables. But she had always found his stories a bore and had been particularly cross with him for suggesting that Zulfiqar might make a good husband.

When one of the brigands tries to gain access over a rear wall, Zulfiqar is wounded in the leg as he kills him. Nazo helps him inside and they barricade the doors. But, as the bandit leader berates Mehrban for costing him a life, Waderi takes her daughters aside and stresses that she has no intention of leaving the house under duress. She reminds them that their honour matters more than their lives and, when she hands her three bullets, Nazo realises that her mother is suggesting that they should kill themselves rather than surrender.

Taken aback by her mother's intimation, Nazo recalls the excitement she had felt on getting ready to attend a wedding in the village. Their father had bought them jewellery and he had been so proud of them as they processed with their neighbours. Sikander and Zulfiqar had danced along the road and Nazo had realised that the boy she had been arranged to marry is actually quite handsome. However, her memory is corrupted by seeing Mehrban and the bandit chief scuttling through the fields and between the remembered revellers and she decides to check on Zulfiqar while looking for more bullets in her brother's room. He reminds her of their youthful betrothal and asks if she would ever consider marrying him. Nazo says she would accept him, providing she could remain in this house, could study and work, and could travel wherever she wanted.

Concluding their arrangement without a hint of emotion, Nazo appears to go on to the roof. But the slow-motion shot of her being overrun by gunmen surging through the house is merely a nightmare that the ailing Khuda Baksh endures in prison. Hamzah tries to console him and calls to one of the guards to send for an ambulance, as his fever is worsening. But his fears are realised when some 200 bandits speed towards the house causing a swirl of dust to rise above the fields. Nazo looks on in despair, as she fears that they will never be able to resist such an army of desperadoes.

She feels as alone as Khuda Baksh must have done when he was examined in the hospital by Dr Philip Bailey (David Pridmore) and left to die in a side ward while an orderly waited for a phone to come free so that he could call Waderi. As dusk sets in, the bandits take up positions around the house and Mehrban watches on with scowling satisfaction. The darkness reminds Nazo of the time she and Saeda had challenged their father with rifles when he returned late and he had been proud of them for wanting to learn how to shoot. He had told them that friends and relations had suggested that Waderi was cursed for producing two daughters and he had even fallen out with his own father over his insistence on raising them rather than disposing with them. Khuda Baksh laments that this practice is still common in rural Pakistan and Nazo reflects on how the elders had tried to prevent her from entering the graveyard to see her father's burial.

But, while she is tempted to despair at her plight, she draws strength from Khuda Baksh's faith in her and fires at the bandits creeping through the undergrowth. However, Saeda runs out of bullets and the sisters retreat indoors and close the windows. Nazo reproaches her mother for turning to prayer when God has clearly abandoned them and also upbraids Zulfiqar when he reminds her that suicide is forbidden under Islamic law. She demands to know what is legal about an uncle using a corrupt cop and a bandit king to steal their property and he falls silent.

As she loads the bullets, Nazo thinks back to her father telling her a story about villagers seeking a holy man during a drought and him questioning their faith in his powers because they hadn't bought umbrellas. She imagines herself opening the gates of the compound to see a band of strangers willing to defend her and she notices Khuda Baksh walking among them to remind her that God is Destiny. This pause for thought proves vital, as Hamzah arrives in the vanguard of a fleet of cars bringing reinforcements to defend the family of his cellmate. In panic, the bandits wonder what to do and the two sides are still facing off when dawn breaks and the police chief rolls up to order Nazo to vacate the premises so that the courts can decide who owns the house. She opens the gate and defiantly stares directly into the lens, as she declares that she has papers proving the land and buildings belong to her father and his heirs and a closing caption confirms that Nazo not only triumphed, but is now a member of a political party intent on eradicating banditry from Pakistan.

The real Nazo is seen on a magazine cover, as another caption reveals that she married Zulfiqar and had four children (although, interestingly, their genders are not given). We also see photos of the house where she continues to live with her mother and sister and she clearly deserves her nickname as the `toughest woman in Sindh'. But, while her spirited resistance is as humbling as it is inspirational, Sarmad Masud sometimes struggles on a modest budget to convey the magnitude of her achievement.

Depite the factual basis of the story, some viewers will be puzzled why the bandits simply don't storm the building when it becomes clear that Zulfiqar is wounded and that Nazo is low on ammunition. The sudden appearance of Hamzah and his legions also feels a little contrived, while the closing speech to camera leaves us none the wiser how the standoff was actually resolved, as the police chief can hardly be considered an honest broker.

But this is a masala Western after all and, such quibbles aside, it is every bit as artistically ambitious and structurally sophisticated a piece of film-making as Two Dosas. Once again, Masud elides time frames and narrative spaces to convey the thoughts of the characters, as memories, dreams, nightmares and fantasies tumble in on the core storyline. Masud's script has the delicacy of a mosaic and he is heavily indebted to editor Olly Stothert for ensuring that the associational transitions work so smoothly. Haider Zafar's photography and Caroline Bailey's production design are also first rate, as are Vincente Villaescusa's sound mix and Tristan Cassel-Delavois's score.

The same can't be said of some of the support playing. But Syed Tanveer Hussain and Ahsen Murad show well as the feuding brothers, while Suhaee Abro combines a graceful presence with an emotional toughness that reinforces the script's approach to the treatment of women in provincial Pakistan and other patriarchal societies. It would be nice to think that this could finds its way on to the Oscar ballot paper, but the occasional slow stretch and the sketchiness of the secondary characters will probably count against it. The often illegible subtitles won't help much, either. Nevertheless, this is a commendably bold celebration of a remarkable life and it should confirm Masud as a talent to watch.

With the weekly release schedule becoming increasingly cluttered with `event cinema' happenings, the lines between filmed and screened entertainment are narrowing. Following in the tradition of the Gale Edwards adaptation of Giuseppe Verdi's Aida that was recorded on the banks of Sydney Harbour, Kasper Holten's production of Georges Bizet's Carmen makes evocative use of the views of Lake Constance that can be seen from the Austrian town of Bregenz.

With musical directors Paolo Carignani and Jordan de Souza putting the Bregenz Festival Chorus, the Prague Philharmonic Choir and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra through their paces, Bizet's score and the libretto based on a Prosper Mérimée story by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy have rarely sounded better. But, what makes Felix Breisach's Carmen on the Lake unforgettable is the Seebühne, the 7000-seater floating auditorium that enables inspired British production designer Es Devlin to shatter the myth of `canned opera' being inferior to its live counterpart.

Following a rather vulgar showreel of previous productions at the Bregenz Festival, the action opens on a set made up of a giant pair of women's hands letting a pack of suspended playing cards fall where they may. In a square in Seville, the red-clad Carmen the gypsy (Gaëlle Arquez) reads some tarot cards and plants a kiss on the mouth of a street urchin who tries to steal her deck. As the guard comes on duty, they lounge around and people watch until Micaëla (Elena Tsallagova) hoves into sight in a green peasant dress searching for Don José (Daniel Johansson). The yellow-shirted Moralès (Rafael Fingerlos) attempts to flirt with her and invites her to spend some time with his unit. But she decides to wait inside until her beloved corporal comes on duty.

As the soldiers arrive in their black capes, the female workers emerge in their blue overalls from the cigarette factory for a break. As they wash with water from the lake, they sing about the intoxicating nature of tobacco smoke. But the guards are only interested in Carmen and she mocks them with the words of `Habanera', which warn any man who falls for her to beware. The factory girls disappear to start a new shift, leaving Micaëla (who has seen Carmen throw a flower at the disdainful José) to present him with a message from his mother and a kiss to protect him. He sends Micaëla home with an embrace for his mother, but he is distracted when Carmen (who has been watching his chaste tryst) comes charging out of the factory wielding a knife at a co-worker who has upset her.

The captain of the guard, Zuniga (Sebastien Soulès), is unimpressed when Carmen responds to his charging her by singing `tra-la-la' and mocking his authority. He goes to sign her warrant and orders José to tie Carmen's hands. But she entices him with a Seguidilla, in which she describes what she would do to the lucky man who takes her dancing at Lillas Pastia's tavern. Confused, he unties her hands, only for Carmen to give him the slip and jumps into the lake to leave him to face the wrath of Zuniga, who has José arrested for dereliction of duty.

Act Two opens with the playing cards turning to show their values, as they form the bar owned by Lillas Pastia (Stefan Wallraven), where Carmen and her friends Frasquita (Jana Baumeister) and Mercédès (Marion Lebègue) are amusing themselves by taunting Zuniga and his pals. Carmen sings about the excitement of the night, while some of her co-workers dance with the soldiers on a platform covered with shallow water that splashes as they kick their legs. At one point, the women let their hair dangle in the lake so they can whip a cascade of water over their partners. But their reverie is interrupted by the arrival of Escamillo (Scott Hendricks), the great toreador, who sings of his triumphs in the bullring.

He also sets his sights on Carmen, but is interrupted in his turn by smugglers Dancaïre (Dariusz Perczak) and Remendado (Simeon Esper), who have come looking for Carmen, Mercédes and Frasquita because they have some contraband that needs shifting and it never does any harm to have a little female cunning on the strength. When Carmen announces that she is staying at the tavern because she is in love and has an assignation, the other josh her. But she seems pleased that José has completed his two-month sentence and offers him a private dance to show her affection.

As the water laps against the lower reaches of the stage, the playing cards behind them appear smudged, as Carmen gyrates on the floor and straddles the lovestruck José. But, when he hears the sound of the company bugle, he insists that he has to return to barracks or face another charge. Appalled by his decision to put duty before passion, Carmen ridicules him, even when he produces the flower she had tossed to him during their first meeting. She picks the petals, as he sings about how the rose has sustained him in prison.

But his pretty words cut no ice, as she will only believe that José loves her if he follows her into the mountains. He refuses to desert, but his protestations are cut short when Zuniga enters the inn looking for Carmen. Sneeringly, he sings that she should save her charms for officers not petty corporals and José becomes so enraged that they fight. They are prised apart by Remendado and Dancaïre and José realises that he will be severely punished if he returns to base after attacking a superior. So, when Zuniga is shot dead, he is left with no option but to follow Carmen and the brigands into hiding.

Following a bizarre intermission that ends with an interview with Es Devlin about her ideas for the set, Act Three opens with a top shot down on to the darkened stage that is lit only by small camp fires flickering in the stiffening breeze. Frasquita and Mercédès appear through the gloom and place large Tarot cards on a sloping edge, as they peer into the future to see whether they will find rich husbands. Carmen joins them and admits to fearing what the future will hold, as her younger self (Efsa Topol) walks across the stage during a rumination on unrealised dreams and the fact that the cards keep foretelling Death for both her and José.

High up in the left hand towering some 25 metres over the stage, Micaëla enters looking for José. She is convinced that Carmen will lead him to ruin and prays to God to protect her so that she can rescue José and return him to his village. A shot rings out and Micaëla is concerned for José. But he is on guard duty and is surprised to see Escamillo arrive by boat in their harbour hideaway. The toreador announces that he has come to claim Carmen because he has heard that she has grown tired of her soldier boy and José challenges the swaggering interloper to a knife fight.

Carmen halts the duel and Escamillo declares his love for her. However, they are interrupted when Micaëla is brought into the camp and she explains that she has come to tell José that his mother is dying and wishes to see him to patch up their differences. Initially, he is reluctant to leave, as he knows that Carmen will take up with Escamillo. But Dancaïre is eager to move out and José decides to go with Micaëla, even though Escamillo has invited everyone to a bullfight in Seville and swept Carmen into his arms because she craves excitement.

Soldiers and smugglers alike arrive at the bullring for the march of the toreadors and Escamillo enters the arena with Carmen at his side to an eruption of fireworks. She swears that she has never loved anyone so much and an eavesdropping José is devastated. Frasquita and Mercédès warn Carmen that José is looking for her, but she claims to be unafraid. As the cheers ring out from inside the arena, José confronts Carmen and pleads with her to give their relationship another chance. But she proclaims her love for Escamillo and a distraught José drowns her in the lake. As her red gown swells on the surface, the crowd pours out to witness José confessing to his crime and surrendering himself to justice.

Closing on a curtain call that involves conductor Paolo Carignani, as well as Kasper Holten and Es Devlin, this thrilling production will send many away in search of video records of previous Bregenz operas. Some might also hunt out their DVDs of Otto Preminger's 1954 film of Oscar Hammerstein II's brilliant interpretation of Bizet, Carmen Jones. But few will forget this breathtakingly innovative version in a hurry. Whether it should upstage the cast in quite so decisive a manner, Devlin's set is undoubtedly the star of the show, with Bruno Poet's lighting, Anja Vang Kragh's costumes and Luke Halls's clever video projections adding to the visual splendour that is forever being reinforced by the disappearing skyline and the lapping of small waves against the stage.

But Bizet's music retains its potency and French mezzo soprano Gaëlle Arquez makes a splendidly spirited and sensual Carmen, as she opts to die rather than sacrifice her freedom. Russian coloratura soprano Elena Tsallagova also impresses as the faithful Micaëla and it's noticeable that she receives a much louder cheer than either American baritone Scott Hendricks or Swedish tenor Daniel Johansson, who respectively lack a certain macho dash and doom-laden pathos as Escamillo and Don José. Clearly nothing can match seeing this vivacious production live and this is much more a documentary record than anything more ambitiously cinematic. Nevertheless, Felix Breisach's considered shifts between wide shots of the wonderful set and more intimate close-ups of the mic'd-up singers provide the next best thing.

Considering how many celebrated French film-makers have passed through its portals, it's more than a little surprising that nobody has thought to make a documentary about the Parisian film school that once rejoiced under the acronym IDHEC and is now known as La Fémis. However, following her close study of a major rail hub in the hybrid-actuality, Gare du Nord (2013), Claire Simon turns her attention to the five-month admission process to one of the world's most revered cine-academies in the rather puzzlingly titled The Graduation (the French title, Le Concours, loosely translates as `The Entrance Exam'), which is one of the films on show over the next week at Dochouse in London.

Founded in 1944, L'Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques had built up a fine international reputation having trained such homegrown auteurs as Alain Resnais, Louis Malle, Jacques Demy, Claude Sautet, André Téchiné, Patrice Leconte, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Claude Miller, Claire Denis and Arnaud Desplechin, as well as such overseas talents as Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Costa Gavras, Ruy Guerra, Volker Schlöndorff, Theo Angelopoulos, Andrzej Zulawski, Paulo Rocha and Rithy Panh. In 1986, however, it was decided to close IDHEC and replace it with L'École Nationale Supérieure des Métiers de l'Image et du Son (aka La Fondation Européenne pour les Métiers de l’Image et du Son). Run and generously funded by the Ministry of Culture, La Fémis was housed in the Palais de Tokyo and initially offered courses in direction, screenwriting, cinematography, editing, production, set design and sound.

Under first president, screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, the school became known for its ability to coax prominent film-makers into running workshops. Even Jean-Luc Godard was persuaded to collaborate with the students, as the likes of Christophe Gans, François Ozon, Céline Sciamma, Emmanuelle Bercot, Marina de Van, Emmanuel Mouret, Pascale Ferran, Rebecca Zlotowski and Alice Winocour graduated and moved on to better things. But, since moving to the old Pathé studios in Montmartre in 1999, La Fémis has been accused in some quarters of helping to calcify French cinema by offering places to predominantly white middle-class candidates.

As a former tutor, who resigned her post in order to make this documentary, the London-born Simon was given unique access to the selection process to expose the criteria involved in winnowing through the thousands of hopefuls competing for just 40 places in each year group. Shooting in the Direct Cinema style that she used to such excellent effect in Coûte que coûte (1995) and Récréations (1998), she guides viewers through the three stages of assessment that allow the judging panel to make decisions that appear to depend as much on a gut reaction to potential as any informed conviction. Fittingly alluding to the earliest Lumière film by starting with a shot of a gate opening and the Fémis aspirants flooding into a rain-soaked courtyard, Simon follows them inside for a chaotic registration session. Clutching sheaves of papers, the mostly twentysomething cinephiles stream into a lecture theatre, where they are asked by moderator Jean-Marc Vernier to analyse a clip from Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Shokuzai (2012) and deliver their verdicts to the administrators in the hallway. The camera roves around the room to the sound of scribbling pens and rustling sheets of A4. Some finish quickly and are asked if they are okay when they submit their work. Others try to sneak a few extra seconds and the invigilator is forced to turn off the lights to stop them writing.

As they melt away, we join a senior officer reminding those who will be responsible for choosing the students that La Fémis has no tutors or formal lessons and that working professionals in all fields of the French film industry share their expertise during the course of a year. They start to introduce themselves, with directors and screenwriters rubbing shoulders with critics and programmers. But Simon opts not to linger, as she eavesdrops on a discussion of some of the practical projects that have been produced by the wannabes. Few words are minced, as they dismiss some entries for lacking sensitivity or visual finesse. But some are worried by the discrepancies in the marks for the prepared material and the three-hour written test, as they are reluctant to deny promising candidates their opportunity because they had a meltdown under pressure. The head of the monitoring panel is less concerned, however, and suggests that some may have had assistance with their personal projects and have revealed their shortcomings when left to their own devices.

Some may feel sorry for those surveying the bulletin board, as they will have no idea of the seemingly random nature of the vetting process. But Simon doesn't show anyone reacting to their results, as receptionists convey mostly bad news over the phone. There is no time to get carried away for those who have made it through to the next round, however, as they are subjected to intense face-to-face scrutiny by practitioners in their chosen field of study. Yet, two of the women who will be assessing the screenwriting hopefuls have to be told how to conduct the oral examination, as they are not full-time educators and need guidance in how to take a candidate through a story pitch and what to look for in their responses. Nevertheless, when a youth with a pencil moustache outlines a fact-based story about religious fanatics on a murder spree, they have no qualms about lamenting his immaturity and savaging the caricatured sensationalism of his scenario.

A poised young woman is next up and they give her an easier ride, even though she mixes up a couple of names in her storyline. The unseen girl who follows her has even greater difficulty corralling her characters, however, and the two adjudicators and their elderly male colleague need a cigarette break on the balcony to untangle their relationships. They laugh at the convolutions and confusions, but are rather taken by the ambition of a plot involving hidden family ties. Similarly, a story devised by a chap in glasses about a girl who surprises an admirer by declaring that she is a horse also piques their interest before the narrative becomes more anti-climactically conventional.

We leave them with the women tallying marks and the man smoking beside the open window in order to see how the production design auditions are going. An earnest young lady uses illustrations and 3-D graphics to explain a scene set in an Indian maze. Two of the three assessors are impressed, but the other is more dismissive and coaxes the others into lowering their marks. Polarised views also appear prevalent in the direction workshop, as the hopefuls are judged on how they light a scene and work with the actors. However, there is unanimity about a southern girl who is keen to make fly-on-the-wall documentaries and explains with enthusiasm and without affectation how she became interested in film-making after attending a screenwriting seminar.

An intriguing interview follows with a girl whose father is a politician from Ivory Coast. Raised in Montpellier, she had become discovered the power of images while visiting her ancestral homeland and believes that it is easier to change the world with images than political speeches. She discusses her older sister's slacker existence and seems to be doing well until her female interlocutors ask her to recommend a couple of favourite films and she can't think of a single title.

Amusingly, their disappointment at her failure is contrasted with one examiner ripping into a pretentious candidate, who kept spouting Robert Bresson when his rushes were amateurish and puerile. Her companion gets the giggles and tries to defend him, but Simon succeeds in showing how first interpersonal impressions can derail a career before it even starts. Yet, as their conversation continues, we get to appreciate the pressure the women are under to ensure a degree of gender, ethnic, regional and class diversity in their selection and how difficult this can be when performances refuse to conform to quota ideals. This concern recurs during a summation meeting, in which the woman who had taken against the aforementioned poseur is challenged by her colleagues to accept that Carl Theodor Dreyer, David Cronenberg and Nicolas Winding Refn would all have been rejected by La Fémis if they had been judged solely on their personalities. She tries to counter that his test scenes were as awful as he is, but the others remain adamant that she is letting her emotions cloud her judgement.

Results are posted and Simon notes how devastating it must feel to be informed of failure over the phone by a grumpy porter who almost regards looking down a list of names as an irritation. But not all departments have completed their task and we see four distributors being reminded that some candidates will be better at oral exams than others and to cut the tongue-tied some slack if the rest of their application shows promise. Their first hopeful is a young woman who swoons over Jacques Demy's Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967) and the ensuing discussion centres on a contrast between her callow enthusiasm and the less effusive, but more considered contribution of an unseen older male. The sole female on the panel clearly feels her views are being brushed aside and the sequence ends with a shrug that conveys her annoyance with her male counterparts. But they are back in full accord when a 22 year-old who already works at a cinema shows a lack of ambition that prompts them to discard her, while an ebullient girl with a palpable fondness for her local arthouse wins them over with her passion and optimism.

Directors Olivier Ducastel and Laetitia Masson (a Fémis alumna) are on the next board and they open an interview by discussing favourite ghosts as a means of getting the candidate to explain what motivates him and how he would do things differently. They warm to his awkward verbosity, but agree that he seems naive and would most likely churn out cookie-cutter movies. Similarly, they doubt whether a law graduate rebelling against family expectation is entirely committed to cinema, while Ducastel dismisses as `hopeless' a kid who had found similarities between Earth and Mars in the autumnal colours he had witnessed on a train journey.

Producer Emmanuel Chaumet has misgivings about an Italian lad who has brought a lucky Sicilian creel with him, as he suspects he was projecting sincerity about his project about fishermen rather than feeling it. But he is outvoted by the others, who believe he has the soul of an artist, even though he clearly knows how to play the credibility game. The next debate turns around whether a bartender would be better off taking his chances as a self-taught film-maker rather than sticking out like a sore thumb at La Fémis. While the exchanges remain civil, they become heated as editor Christel Dewynter comes close to accusing the others of provincialism and snobbery. Conversely, cinematographer Pascale Granel suggests that her colleagues have been swayed by the poetic prose of an inarticulate Chilean screenwriting candidate.

The lack of a consensus carries over into the final selection, as jurors question whether the oral should play a significant role in choosing screenwriters. But the results are posted regardless and the successful candidates pose for a group photo with their selectors before sitting for individual portraits. A few familiar faces from the documentary crop up in this coda and one wonders how they will fare both on the course and in their future careers.

After two hours of gruelling interrogation, some might wonder why anyone would want to study at La Fémis, especially bearing in mind the relative paucity of front-rank film-makers who have trained there in recent times. The selection process often appears haphazard, with decisions often being carried by the seniority or sheer force of personality of particular adjudicator. Indeed, Simon seems far more interested in the methodology of the interviewers than she does in the merits and mannerisms of the candidates. Given that several of those involved in the deliberations will play little or no part in the tuition, it seems a remarkably arbitrary way of going about things and one is left to speculate on the qualifications and administrative suitability of some of the panellists and whether some (or, indeed, several) failed in their own applications to La Fémis. Admirers of Frederick Wiseman and Raymond Depardon will relish Simon's detached discretion and the visual intimacy that she and co-photographer Aurélien Py achieve. But such objectivity makes it difficult to draw any concrete conclusions about Simon's attitude to the criteria used by her erstwhile employer in selecting the next generation of French film-makers. Moreover, non-French speakers will also find it hard to decipher subtitles that often disappear into the white clothing and paper-strewn desktops on to which they are printed. Some film-makers insist in subtitles being as unobtrusive as possible, but surely a darker edging to make the lettering more distinct would not corrupt the integrity of the imagery?