Annual Top Films Lists

Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2018: #53. Radu Muntean’s Alice T.

Published on January 3, 2018

Alice T.

Romanian auteur Radu Muntean tackles teenage angst in his sixth feature, Alice T., which explores the strained relationship of the titular character and her adoptive mother, Bogdana (Mihaela Sirbu). After countless issues at home and at school, Alice becomes pregnant, which causes a stir with Bogdana, who had trouble conceiving. Muntean reteams with his favored DP Tudor Lucaciu and writing partners Alexandre Baciu and Razvan Radulescu. An underrated but critically lauded member of the Romanian New Wave, Muntean remains a prominent film festival fixture whose observational films are marked by a heightened degree of nuance.

Release Date/Prediction: After his Locarno competing sophomore film The Paper Will Be Blue in 2006, Muntean has continually frequented Cannes, first entering the Directors’ Fortnight in 2008 with Boogie (aka Summer Holiday), and then playing in Un Certain Regard with the highly celebrated Tuesday After Christmas in 2010 and One Floor Below (read review) in 2015. We expect Alice T. will likely follow the same route unless Muntean is finally allowed to break into the competition.

Nicholas Bell

Los Angeles based Nicholas Bell is IONCINEMA.com's Chief Film Critic and covers film festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and TIFF. He is part of the critic groups on Rotten Tomatoes, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and GALECA. His top 3 for 2021: France (Bruno Dumont), Passing (Rebecca Hall) and Nightmare Alley (Guillermo Del Toro). He was a jury member at the 2019 Cleveland International Film Festival.