Joanna Hogg • United Kingdom • 2007

An exacting eye on the discontents of the British upper class.

Anna arrives at a stately villa in Tuscany to visit her longtime friend, Verena. Her husband, Alex, has canceled at the last minute, a minor inconvenience that irritates Verena nonetheless. Though the official excuse for his absence is professional, it is clear that Anna and Alex have quarreled—seeking a reprieve from her domestic troubles, Anna spends more and more time with the villa’s teenage contingent, who drink and smoke and disdainfully refer to their parents as “the olds.” The hints of a romance with Verena’s nephew Oakley destabilizes Anna’s position in the villa’s fragile hierarchy.

Captured with immersive sound design and a studied detachment, Unrelated casts an exacting, ambivalent eye on the discontents of the British upper class. Joanna Hogg’s directorial debut premiered at Locarno, Telluride, Thessaloniki and BFI London, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize. Unrelated is a New York Times Critic's Pick.