Economic yet expansive, at once intricately engaged with present-day anxieties and steeped in a sparingly realized speculative future, the debut feature from Katharina Huber (who has worked largely in animation until now) radically reimagines the hangout film against an apocalyptic backdrop. A Good Place follows the daily routines and companionship of two young women, Güte (Clara Schwinning) and Margarita (Céline De Gennaro), who eke out a living in a remote, sparsely inhabited farming village as radio broadcasts describe an unfolding global crisis and count down to the launch of a spacecraft that might save humanity. With an incomparable sense of atmosphere and style, Huber—who wrote, directed, edited, and produced the film—filters and displaces her characters’ fears and comradery onto an enigmatic narrative about survival and isolation. Winner of the awards for best emerging director and best performance (for Schwinning) in the 2023 Locarno Film Festival’s Filmmakers of the Present section.