Maya

After having been held hostage in Syria, French war photographer Gabriel retreats to Goa, India. In these idyllic surroundings he meets an old friend, the director of a fashionable old hotel – and his daughter beautiful and eloquent daughter Maya. Warm feelings soon arise between Maya and Gabriel, but he has a wife and children at home.

In the hands of a lesser filmmaker this could make for some fairly soppy and uninteresting material, but with films like Eden and L’avenir under her belt, French director Mia Hansen-Løve has specialised in portraying people going through disruptions or life crises. She turns Maya into a beautiful, elegant and quite moving tale, where change once again is at the centre of all things.