The Long Arrangement
dir. Ines Kovač · 2026
Formally severe, quietly devastating.
Empty cast-iron street at first light, receding to a vanishing point
Kovač holds shots long past comfort, and the discomfort is the argument. A film about inheritance that refuses to explain itself, The Long Arrangement opens in an empty apartment and stays there longer than most directors would dare. The camera does not hunt for meaning. It waits for the room to reveal what it already knows.
The inheritance in question is not money. It is a set of habits, a way of leaving doors ajar, a particular silence at the dinner table. Two siblings return to clear their mother's flat and discover they have been rehearsing this confrontation for years without naming it. Dialogue is sparse. When it comes, it sounds like people who have already said everything once and are now saying it again for the record.
Formally severe is the polite way to put it. Kovač cuts almost nothing. Scenes run until the air changes. That severity would be affectation if the performances weren't this precise — small gestures that arrive late and land hard. By the final shot, the apartment has been emptied and somehow feels fuller.
A festival film that earns its reputation the old way: by making you sit still and pay attention.