Rebecca Zlotowski’s fifth feature, Other People’s Children premiered in competition at the 2022 Venice Film Festival and impressed audiences with its deeply moving and acutely observed portrait of one woman’s fluctuating feelings around maternal instincts and societal pressures. Rachel (a dazzling Virginie Efira) is a happy schoolteacher exploring the idea of having a child and is intrigued by the concept but also ambivalent — an authentic encapsulation of the conundrum many women around her age face. When Rachel meets charming divorcé, Ali (Roschdy Zem), she falls not just for him, but also for his little girl, Leila. With things progressing quickly in this new family dynamic, Rachel has to wrestle with some complicated feelings around maternal longing and the fear of missing out on what she describes as the “collective experience” of motherhood.