Paulina

Santiago Mitre's 2015 Argentine film is a remake of a picture from 1960. Paulina is a lawyer with a clear path ahead of her in Buenos Aires; her father is a well-known judge who expects her to continue in academia. Instead she returns to her home region and starts teaching at a poor secondary school under an inclusion programme. At the end of her second week she is attacked by a group of men. The film's real subject is not the assault but the decision after it: Paulina wants to go back to the school and insists on judging the men by her own understanding. Everyone around her, her father included, finds this unacceptable. Mitre shows the event more than once from different vantages and leaves the viewer alone with her choice, neither vindicating nor condemning her. It won the grand prize in Critics' Week at Cannes. Who it's for: viewers who like Latin American drama built on a moral dilemma. Who it's not for: anyone who would rather not approach scenes of sexual assault; the film shows it more than once.