In her sixth feature, Schanelec crafts a touching and casually gripping work about human connection, set in the titular Parisian airport. Orly is defined by a mixture of anxious stillness and frantic motion, a film of waiting as much as bustling. Rather than a backdrop for the characters’ micro-dramas (featuring Schanelec regular Maren Eggert and the French actors Natacha Regnier, Bruno Todeschini, and Mireille Perrier), the airport is the stage upon which Schanelec masterfully weaves an episodic tale of everyday life. Moving from character to character, Orly captures something of the socially kaleidoscopic quality of the modern airport, a transient space in which the desires and anxieties of countless strangers come into contact (or don’t) before disappearing again into the distance.

Playing as part of our Angela Schanelec retrospective (Feb. 7-13), leading to the opening of I Was at Home, But… on Feb. 14. See 3+ films during the retrospective and save!