Aiko, a makeup artist working in Moscow, endured domestic violence during her childhood and has since cut ties with her father. One day, she receives the news of her father’s death, and with mixed emotions, she returns to her hometown to attend the funeral. There, Aiko meets her father’s second wife and her half-sibling. She is struck by the fact that the father, who was a monster to her, showered boundless love and kindness on them. This realization leaves Aiko feeling both angry and helpless. Dad Croaked on Saturday, the feature fiction debut by documentary filmmaker Zaka Abdrakhmanova, is set in a small village in Kazakhstan and revolves around three women who must become a new family. While the director chose the most familiar setting to her, the film is not an overtly ethnic or social commentary; rather, it tells a universal story that could unfold anywhere in the world. (HONG Sang-woo)Minervini, who achieved success with three documentaries, made a comeback with a drama and won the Best Director award in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival. He has dug into the soil of American society through the eyes of the other, and in The Damned, he seeks fundamental reflection from the period of the Civil War. His approach to filming remains the same, making the movie appear as if it were a documentary shot in 1862. A scouting party sent to the frontier finds their faith tested in an unknown land. Believing that God is on their side, the scouts face an incredible irony, which rises from a situation where an invisible enemy is constantly imagined, and Minervini gets to the root of the question. The film, with only a 7-minute shooting sequence, is more like a re-examination of the Western genre than a war historical drama. The hero who led the cavalry and the community has vanished, leaving a few disoriented and exhausted soldiers wandering through the wilderness and snowfields. It is a thoughtful Western film that falsifies the western myth of white settlers. (LEE Yong Cheol)