Based on Chen Yunabin’s novella “The Wan Family’s Lawsuit”, The Story of Qiu Ju was a huge success on the festival circuit, earning a plethora of awards, including the Golden Lion for Zhang and the Volpi Cup for Best Actress for Gong Li, at the Venice Film Festival. The film is set in present-day China (1992) in north-west Shaanxi province (an area which the director would return to in his film The Road Home). Many of the street scenes in the cities were filmed with a hidden camera so the images are a sort of documentary of China during the time of Deng Xiaoping. As film critic Roger Ebert said “along the way we absorb more information about the lives of ordinary people in everyday China than in any other film I’ve seen.” Gong Li is astonishing in the titular role, presenting a woman determined to achieve her goals with nothing but sheer courage.

Set in 1980, after the sudden passing of his mother, taciturn Jón takes her in the backseat, along with the family dog Bresnef, on one last trip to Eyrarbakki where she had always wanted to visit. Driving Mum is a clever, imaginative film that flickers in the light of various genres but develops its own distinctive character. The leading man, hirsute and unworldly, is heroic. His dog easily justifies third place on the credits. The film successfully negotiates the line between eccentricity and silliness: characters, scenes and events teeter at the far edge of implausibility but never topple over. Shot in monochrome it is often starkly beautiful, with colour added by the supporting cast.

A young, French, opera-loving mail courier, Jules, becomes inadvertently entangled in murder, when a young woman fleeing two mob hit-men drops an incriminating cassette into his mailbag just before she is murdered. Jules has just recently recorded American opera star Cynthia Hawkins at her latest concert, something of a coup as Hawkins refuses to make recordings of any kind. Soon the unwitting Jules finds himself being pursued by Taiwanese bootleggers and a thuggish gang of drug dealers who will do anything to get their hands on the cassettes.

Passionate about dance, young Merab has trained at the National Georgian Dance Ensemble since childhood. His sole aim in life is to join the Main Dance Ensemble, break free from the confines of Georgian society and travel the world. When Irakli, a virile, talented male dancer joins his group, Merab fears the newcomer is the only thing standing between him and his dreams. As they compete, Irakli becomes both Merab’s fiercest rival and strongest desire – a desire that, in conservative Georgian society, threatens to throw his dance career, livelihood and family into turmoil. With a breath-taking central performance from its breakout stars, Levan Akin’s luminous film explores forbidden desire, ambition and liberation set against the backdrop of traditionalist Tbilisi where screening of the film sparked protests, due to its portrayal of an illicit love affair.

Tamara Dobson stars as Cleopatra Jones, a female version of James Bond and drug agent for the United States government. She wears sleek clothes, drives a fast car with a submachine gun compartment in the front door and travels all over the world to stamp out drugs at their source, including Turkey to oversee the destruction of poppy fields owned by drug dealer Mommy (a very camp Shelley Winters) who becomes upset at their loss. Our first ‘blaxploitation’ film, Cleopatra Jones was made following the success of the Shaft series. It opened at a time when the Black Arts Movement and an increasingly growing black feminism were all prevalent. From this social context emerged the desire for a black heroine who appealed to women through a combination of alluring femininity, female strength and combat skill. The character of Cleopatra would later serve as the inspiration for Foxy Cleopatra, played by Beyoncé in Austin Powers: Gold Member.