In 2018, Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-Eda won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Shoplifters, a surprisingly bittersweet film about a group of small-time crooks who become family out of necessity. Now he’s back with a rather similar version of the same story, this time in South Korea. There, the constant problem of abandoned babies on the street led to the fact that public organizations set up special protective “nurseries” at their entrances. An employee of such an institution, together with an indebted girlfriend, steals a baby from there with the intention of selling it. Soon a young mother of a baby comes into play, and four of them, and in the end five, go on a strange journey, with the police on their trail.

Almost as good as the concept is the execution of Kore-Ed, who created this peculiar road movie featuring two (very) amateur child traffickers.

The outrageousness of the situation is balanced by a deeply human script that methodically guides the viewer’s emotions towards redemption. On the second level, what we see again – after “The Thieves” – is a scribble of a supposedly advanced society, which nevertheless treats its own children with terrible cruelty. Black humor masterfully covers up the cruelty here, too, in the recipe we saw earlier, and that’s why it makes less of an impression on us.

DC’s bad comic adventure is getting a sequel that even has ancient Greek… expansions. The film begins with a panorama of the Acropolis and then dives into the nearby museum. There, three mythical deities (Helen Mirren, Lucy Liu, Rachel Zeigler) conspire to steal a magic wand capable of opening the gates of the demon world to Earth.

Our famous family of young superheroes, led by Shazam (Zachary Levi), will be called upon to thwart their plans in a battle that will culminate in the streets of Philadelphia, USA.

Despising the adventures of superheroes who try to take themselves too seriously, David F. Sandberg’s film embraces its humorous side, even as it flirts (and sometimes oversteps) the boundaries of slapstick. Of course, there is no special plot or originality here, but pure fun, which is provided by stellar actors such as Helen Mirren, Jimun Hoonsu and Rachel Zegler (“West Side Story”).

The charismatic Virginie Efira (and her gorgeous motorbike) stars in a French drama that won the corresponding César Award for Best Actress.

Mia survives the devastation of a deadly terrorist attack in a Parisian bistro. Months later, she struggles to bring back memories of the fateful night she instinctively pushed away with the help of a man who had the same traumatic experience.

Ephyra truly carries the entire film on her shoulders, with Vinokur’s camera keeping a close eye on her as she traverses Paris, trying to piece together the fragments of the nightmare to overcome it.

The theme of mental trauma is clearly at the center of the film, which, however, could have been much shorter.

The creator of the successful “Martin Eden” Pietro Marcello returns to the history of the twentieth century, this time adapting the book by Alexander Grin. In the north of France, young Juliet is raised alone by her father, a World War I veteran. Fascinated by singing and music, a lonely young girl meets a magician who promises her that “purple sails” will one day carry her away from her native village. Since then, and as the years have passed until 1939, she has not ceased to believe in the fulfillment of the prophecy.

Eleni Alexandraki collects seven stories about people being evicted. The heroes of the documentary, Greeks and foreigners, were (or still are) children, forcibly and often politically torn from their natural environment, carrying the corresponding traumas forever. Their narratives explore various aspects of world history, from the Greek Civil War and the Frankish dictatorship to the war in Afghanistan and the COVID-19 pandemic. Alexandraki was forced by the pandemic to conduct most of her interviews remotely, which somewhat detracts from the liveliness of the final result, on the other hand, some of what is said there is truly shocking, recalling the tragedy of eradication knows no seasons or geographical boundaries.