Perla

Alexandra Makarová’s impressive second feature film is a quietly powerful portrait of motherhood, resilience, and survival under patriarchy. In early 1980s Vienna, artist Perla (Rebeka Poláková, in an arresting performance) lives freely with her young daughter, until she receives a phone call that compells her to make the risky return to communist Czechoslovakia. Drawing on personal family history, this taut Cold War drama traces the costs of exile, and the courage to live on one’s own terms.