Beasts of the Southern Wild by Benh Zeitlin (US, 2012, 90 min.). In a forgotten but defiant bayou community cut off from the rest of the world by a sprawling levee, a six-year-old girl exists on the brink of orphanhood. Buoyed by her childish optimism and extraordinary imagination, she believes that the natural world is in balance with the universe until a fierce storm changes her reality. Desperate to repair the structure of her world in order to save her ailing father and sinking home, this tiny hero must learn to survive unstoppable catastrophes of epic proportions. “Hauntingly beautiful both visually and in the tenderness it shows toward the characters” (Manohla Dargis, The New York Times). Winner of the US Dramatic Competition at Sundance and the FIPRESCI award for Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section.