Armand

An ordinary afternoon at a primary school in Norway, just before the summer holidays. Elisabeth, an actress and a single mother, is called in because of something her six-year-old son Armand is supposed to have done to another boy in his class. Across the table sit the other boy's parents, Sarah and Anders, who are tied to her by family, which makes everything worse. Between them, a young teacher and a headmaster who would rather be anywhere else. Nobody quite knows what happened. Everybody already has a version.

Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel, grandson of Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman, made this as his first feature, and it won the Caméra d'Or at Cannes. The whole film takes place inside the school building during that one meeting, and it starts like a tense chamber drama about accusation and blame. Then it slowly slides into something stranger: corridors that go on too long, a laughing fit that will not stop, a dance in an empty hall. The rules of realism loosen, and the film becomes about what lies underneath polite conversation, grief and old secrets and the stories adults tell about children.

Renate Reinsve, after The Worst Person in the World, is extraordinary. Elisabeth is performing all the time, and you never quite know whether she is lying, protecting herself or falling apart, sometimes all three in the same shot. Not every experiment works, and the second half will lose some viewers. But it is bold, unsettling and completely original, a debut that feels like the start of a real career. Norway's Oscar entry, and it made the shortlist.