Plinth

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Three Billboards is perfectly formed. Perversely, its virtue felt almost accidental – sort of like how I imagine salted caramel was invented, or penicillin. The story follows Mildred Hayes – the kind of no-bullshit woman you might be terrified of, but whose approval you desperately seek nonetheless – avenging the death of her teenage daughter after a year has gone by since she was raped and killed.

Faced with a hands-in-the-air, ‘cold case’ line of enquiry from the cops, Hayes rents out three billboards on the local high-way, each emblazoned with a black and red message that the Chief (quite literally) cannot ignore: “Raped While Dying Still // And Still No Arrests // How Come Chief Willoughby?” The film’s treatment of corruption in the American justice system is strong enough a thread that it resonates and sticks to its audience, but not so present that it devolves into the film’s only focus.

Each character, from the protagonist right through to the young man she rents the billboards from, is at once a caricature and painfully relatable; the script allows them to come into humanity and all its hideous complexity. A soundtrack of Mariachi music takes you by the hand, and accompanies every step through the knotted story; in its dark, rich comedy and portrayals of family love and tragedy, Three Billboards is practically without blemish – I’ll be watching it again a few times over.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri hits UK cinemas 12 January.

Bobbi Jene

My second must-see film has become a running joke in the office because of how much I go on about it; my colleagues have all heard me preach its merits to countless filmmakers and industry delegates at the festival. Bobbi Jene is a documentary by Elvira Lind which follows the film’s title character throughout a pivotal time in her life: leaving the notorious Batsheva Dance Company in Israel to move back to her native America and find her own path as a dancer and choreographer.

Bobbi moved to Israel at age 21 to join Ohad Naharin’s dance company. The world she discovers there, within his thrall, is cult-like – suffused with peculiar rituals, customs and logic. It even has its own language of movement: ‘Gaga’, created by Naharin. Throughout the film, he treads a tightrope between championing and belittling the women around him, cultivating a persona somewhere between patriarch and deity.

Ten years after joining the company, Bobbi Jene tells him she’s leaving. He responds by asking how old she is, while eating the food off her plate. I found her fascinating to watch – and not just because one of her pieces involves masturbating on a sandbag. Rather, I’m in awe of the strength and passion which meant she was able to disentangle herself from what looks increasingly like an abusive relationship, power radiating from a central figure into all his followers. Her determination to create, and live by, her own art, is profoundly affecting. In her words, “I want to get to the place where I have no strength to hide anything”. In mine, Bobbi Jene is a film about finding pleasure in what weighs you down; it’s about the pleasure of effort. I’ll be following her story with an eagle eye, and highly suggest you do the same.

Watch the trailer for Bobbi Jene here.

By Leah Foster