Wrony / Crows (1994 Dorota Kedzierzawska & scr)

Devastating, beautiful and heart-wrenching, Kedzierzawska's economical film is seriously well shot (by Arthur Reinhart, who also edited, with the director) and acted. If you think she gets a great performance out of Karolina Ostrozna you should see what she then does with little Katarzyna Szczepanik. Poor Wrone gets no love and everyone is horrible to her, so she kidnaps a young girl and becomes her 'mother'. Echoes of another female director's Fish Tank, I felt apprehensive throughout. This is a film which benefits from its close ups, and is extraordinary and insightful (she basically learns to become a real mother but her own still rejects her in painful last high shot).

It's Polish, by the way.