‘Nina Roza’ Review: An Eerily Doubled, Intricately Mirrored and Deeply Moving Reflection on Immigrant Identity

Key Highlights

• A film of many subtle, tricky marvels, Geneviève Dulude-De Celles‘s slowly bewitching “Nina Roza” comes closer than many to conveying that strange, imprecise separation of the soul — through both lucidly expressed feeling, and artfully built narrative structure.
• Related Stories Variety Names Jeff Cooper as Group Senior Vice President of Consumer Partnerships Variety Promotes Emily Longeretta to Director of Features One of the quiet surprises of this year’s Berlin Film Festival competition, the Québécois filmmaker’s notably assured second feature arrives seven years after her debut “A Colony” won the Crystal Bear in the same fest’s youth-oriented Generation Kplus sidebar.
• That film, a simple but piercing portrait of a shy teen caught between opposing peer influences, was familiar in some ways but auspicious in the calm depth of its gaze — and that humane poise is present again in “Nina Roza,” this time in service of more complex characters and more finely calibrated conflicts.
• The pensive sophistication and opalescent style with which the film unparcels its ideas might not please arthouse crowds wanting broader emotional gestures, but Dulude-De Celles may be a festival-circuit major in the making.
• Popular on Variety It’s nearly 30 years since Mihail (a marvelous Galin Stoev) left Bulgaria following the death of his wife, taking their young daughter Roza to begin a new life in Montreal.