Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story, dir. Sinéad O’Shea

Even those familiar with the pioneering Irish novelist Edna O’Brien will probably finish Sinéad O’Shea’s riveting new biographical documentary about her — which notably features in-person interviews with the wry, razor-sharp subject herself in the months leading up to her death, in 2024, at the age of 93 — with an immediate need to order a stack of her books. (I currently have some en route.)

Blue Sun Palace, dir. Constance Tsang

Blue Sun Palace is one of the best representations I’ve seen in a movie of the sense of space left behind when someone close to you suddenly dies. The feature is Constance Tsang’s first — something you wouldn’t guess from her preternaturally assured direction — and it’s set in Queens, where we’re acquainted with a trio of East Asian immigrants (Lee Kang-sheng, Wu Ke-xi, and Haipeng Xu) whose work trying to actualize their conceptions of the American dream are dramatically altered by a shocking act of violence that arrives about 30 minutes into the movie. Tsang’s penchant for long takes and naturalistic dialogue makes you feel like you’re just watching lives unfold — like its central tragedy, and the shaky subsequent efforts to get to a place of acceptance, were happening to people you knew.

Read the full diary here.

Image credit: Edna O’Brien in a portrait featured in Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien story, courtesy of SIFF.