AVA New Auteurs

Thirteen-year-old Ava is spending the summer on the Atlantic coast when she learns she will go blind in the coming months. While her mother acts as if everything is normal, Ava confronts the problem in her own way — and her world is turned upside down when she steals a large black dog from a young man on the run. With an ancient and fractured landscape as the background, and amid the disturbing and bold visual flair of debut director Léa Mysius, the young lovers explore their burgeoning sexuality. But as adulthood closes in, options grow limited, and prospects narrower. This stunning film serves as a potent metaphor of a young woman who fears the cage that awaits her on the other side of adolescence. – Lane Kneedler