Cinema debut of the year with the intense comedy 'No Other Choice'

Park's direction is as elegant as ever and, at the same time, the sound apparatus does its job very well, alternating classical music with deafening noise, always in balance with a prestigious visual apparatus.

A film capable of combining funny moments with some very dark and disturbing ones, 'No Other Choice' is a successful feature film, thanks also to the excellent performance of a cast in top form.

If the author became famous with his 'revenge trilogy' (the central title of which is the memorable 'Old Boy' of 2003), here too the focus is on a sort of settling of accounts that the protagonist demands of today's society, entirely consistent with the poetics of a director who is always able to shake and amaze.

Another big star of the weekend in theatres is one of the most beautiful animated films of recent years: 'Little Amélie', the feature film debut of Liane-Cho Han and Mailys Vallade, based on the novel 'The Metaphysics of Tubes' by Amélie Nothomb.

Set in Japan in the 1960s, the film tells the story of Amélie, the youngest daughter of a Belgian family who is in the Far East for her father's work. In her early years, the child gazes at the world with enchanted eyes, convinced that she is at the centre of the universe, a sort of all-powerful deity. Beside her is Nishio-san, the young Japanese maid, who becomes her silent guide, playmate and confidante, a fixed point in an ever-changing world.

Thanks to a vintage touch and a series of existential reflections of great depth, 'Little Amélie' is one of the most touching and delicate titles seen in recent months on the big screen.

Listening to the inner voice of a little girl about to turn three, we find ourselves reflecting on life and death, the passing of time and the importance of roots, family relationships and the independence of someone who wants to grow up following her own rules.

That would already be a lot, but the film also has on its side an aesthetic apparatus of the first magnitude that makes it rightfully among the leading Golden Globe and Oscar nominees in its category: we are rooting for little Amélie.

Among the latest films of 2025 to be released in our cinemas is also 'Filmlovers' by Arnaud Desplechin.

The French director once again chooses the character of Paul Dédalus - created for the 1996 film "Comment je me suis disputé... (ma vie sexuelle)" and then reprised in 2015 in "My Finest Days" - as his increasingly explicit alter ego. "Filmlovers" is a film centred on the director's and his Paul's passion for cinema, whose early experiences as a child in a cinema hall we follow through to the awareness gained over the years.

As in the two aforementioned films, Paul as an adult is played by Mathieu Amalric, a fetish actor for Desplechin and the interpreter of some of the most successful films of his career such as 'The Kings and the Queen' (2004) and the very powerful 'Christmas Story' (2008).

Mixing the language of documentary with that of fiction, without forgetting an extensive use of archive material, Desplechin signs a colourful and sincere (self)portrait, where one can feel all the personal and emotional drive that gave rise to this curious operation.

From Michael Cimino's 'The Deer Hunter' to François Truffaut's 'The 400 Blows', via Claude Lanzmann's documentary 'Shoah', which occupies a long fragment of the film and seems to have been truly unforgettable viewing for Desplechin, there are countless quotations and homages that the French director makes to (his!) film history.

The idea behind the film is simple and certainly already seen, but 'Filmloverss' is nonetheless a product capable of touching the right emotional chords and of thrilling the most cinephile audience. The style is at times mannered, but the vision remains curious, engaging and capable of giving rise to more than one reflection.