Punctured by quasi-documentary interludes, characters that appear and melt away, and hypnotically fluid tracking shots, Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell is one of the most bizarre and beautiful experiences you will have in the cinema this year.

"A wandering spiritual inquiry that will take in many dazzling shifts in tone and perspective along the way, all wrangled with preternatural confidence and formal invention by its young director." - Guy Lodge, Variety

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A hallucinatory excursion into the inner life of a young man sleep-walking his way through a spiritual crisis, Inside the Cocoon Shell is the debut feature by Vietnamese director Pham Thien An, who has been hailed as the heir to Apichatpong Weerasethakul and won the Camera d'Or for Best Debut Feature at Cannes.

The film tells the story of Thien (Le Phong Vu), who, prompted by a family tragedy, goes on a search for his long lost brother in the misty countryside of Vietnam. On the road, Thien experiences a series of dreams and encounters that reignite suppressed memories and desires.

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"Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell is an entrancing work of art, but it's also wise enough to leave its deepest mysteries unsolved." - Justin Chang, NPR

"It’s the kind of film that steadily trains you in perceiving and eventually becoming lost in its sense of time, to the extent that you can almost forget the presence of the camera even when it is moving." - Josh Slater-Williams, indieWire

"There is no answer to neatly take away from Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell. We are meant to find our own conclusions from Thien’s soul searching—to listen to others and ourselves for what we’re looking for in our own quest for spiritual fulfillment." - Monica Castillo, rogerebert.com

"While the style might recall Apichatpong Weerasethakul or Bi Gan (Long Day’s Journey into Night, 2018), the execution and the existential questioning show a very individual artist bursting from his own cocoon and taking wing.” - Jonathan Romney, Sight and Sound