© 2026 The Couch Critic
I think of an ambiguous relationship between a woman from my hometown and a man from another city. They spent only a brief time together, yet could only keep talking. Unable to truly face one another, past scenes return to the surface of time. Was it a trace against the city's flow, or a reflection briefly allowed?
Slip stitch, skip stitch, single stitch, and yarn over. Roommates in Switzerland for two years, Yoonsuk and Sunwoo spend Sunwoo's final winter knitting together. Leaving the last stitch unfinished, Yoonsuk at last begins her own "knock back."
Twenty years after losing touch, two cousins, Giyoung and Hyunwoo, spend an ordinary day together. From meeting at a subway station to parting there, the landscapes and objects around them quietly reveal the time each of them has carried.
Chaired by the city’s mayor, Rodick Bobo, a relative of the filmmaker’s, motions are moved, seconded and voted on. Pay rises for city employees, permits for food trucks, and other matters of municipal governance are discussed in view of the camera’s fixed frame. Against a wider backdrop of decrepit democratic systems in the country, a portrait of an attempt at earnest, accountable politics in the USA emerges.
An intimate portrait of an uncompromising feminist artist and musician, depicting both her fierce creative drive and the personal costs of using her own life as raw material.
An emotional and physical horror film about a man living with Muscular Dystrophy and the metaphorical journey of dealing with his negligent nursing staff.
Sophia is warned by her eccentric new landlord about a malevolent spirit residing in her flat.
How do you rebuild your sense of self after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder? Daniel Léger experienced his first manic episode in his early thirties. With courage and vulnerability, he recounts how his diagnosis shook his identity to the core. Through striking images created with fire and soot by visual artist Steven Spazuk, the film depicts Léger’s personality in rich nuances of shadow and light. The transformations paint a sensitive portrait of a man who, despite his mental health struggles, has been able to rise from the ashes.
A teenager falls into a pool and surfaces in a nightmare reality where smiling doppelgangers of his friends want him dead.
A team of evolutionary biologists from the University of Idaho travels to the Galápagos Islands to solve the Earth's biodiversity crisis. The twist? They aren't studying the iconic tortoises or blue footed boobies on this storied archipelago—they are Snail Hunters, studying a more unlikely subject in the crucible of evolution. By understanding the unique traits that make snails a champion of coexistence, the multi-disciplinary scientists hope to unlock a brighter future for humanity and the planet.
Porn filmmakers in 1981 seek to cash in on the slasher craze by making their own independent ripoff that follows a group of spring breaking college coeds as they are stalked by a mysterious killer beekeeper at a camp with a tragic past.
Heart of a Lion follows cougar biologist Mark Elbroch into the parallel worlds of two mountain lion mothers: F61, who revealed their hidden social lives, and Yoko, struggling to raise her young on the edge of human encroachment. From the rugged wilderness of Wyoming’s Tetons to the misty forests of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, this intimate and immersive journey reveals one of North America’s most misunderstood predators—asking us to see them with admiration instead of fear.
Skander is 11 years old. Taken to the neighborhood pool by his little sister's babysitter, he enters the men's showers for the first time. Skander experiences his first erotic shock; he won't believe it.
On the day after Halloween, a college film student encounters a stranger and plays a game of rock-paper-scissors. Then they transform into multiple personas while pondering their own personal experiences and relationships.
In the Netherlands, the integration process for refugees is called a "Customer Journey." Refugees are seen as customers, guided through an endless chain of forms, rules, and institutions: a system designed for efficiency but experienced as a labyrinth. Customer Journey follows a large Syrian family seeking a home for the family and two sisters of Somali descent who are part of the LGBTQ community and dream of becoming actresses as they navigate this complex system. Around them, civil servants, volunteers, and social workers do their best to help, often in humorous and touching ways, yet hopes frequently collide with procedures. The film reveals a world where bureaucracy meets good intentions, where dreams are tested by rules, and after navigating it all, have the hopes that brought you here been realized?
