Martha Marcy May Marlene15

Winner of the Best Director prize at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and an official selection at Cannes and Toronto, Durkin’s powerful debut stars Elizabeth Olsen as a young woman who flees a deranged cult in rural New York and seeks refuge with her sister. With no other family to lean on, Martha tries desperately to rebuild relations with her sister but her re-assimilation into ‘normal’ life is undermined by recurring flashbacks and paranoia, to the point where she begins to lose her grip on reality. With chillingly beautiful cinematography, this is a film that claws its way into you slowly, rippling with a horrible sense of threat right up until the unnerving conclusion.

The screening on Tuesday 7 February (18.15) is a GFT Screen Salon.