Friyay! ​What to watch

Two girls, one Irish and one English, have a life-changing adventure in this film, which is nominated in the Best Animation Feature category at next month's Academy Awards, alongside more well-known works such as Pixar's Soul and Onward.

Featuring a gorgeous "flat" art style unique in this age of 3D animation, this is co-director Tomm Moore's third work in a trilogy inspired by the folk tales of his native Ireland.

In 17th-century Ireland, English invaders decree that the forests be cleared of wolves, a policy that will not just purge it of predators, but also sever the connection the Irish population have with ancient spirits. Mebh (voiced by Eva Whittaker), a girl who can shape-shift into wolf, vows resistance.

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FILMGARDE BUGIS+

The festival is headed by social enterprise Happiness Initiative in partnership with the National Youth Council, and this year's edition brings attention to vulnerable groups.

It closes this weekend with French drama-comedy The Specials (NC16, 114 minutes, today, 7.15pm); American documentary Skid Row Marathon (NC16, 85 minutes, tomorrow, 2.30pm); and British drama Sorry We Missed You (NC16, 100 minutes, Sunday, 2.30pm) - three films that deal with the neurodiverse, ex-offenders and the underprivileged respectively.

There will be post-screening discussions with those who are experienced in the issues raised in the films.

WHERE Filmgarde Bugis+, Bugis+, 201 Victora Street MRT Bugis WHEN Till Sunday ADMISSION $12 INFO happinessfilmfest.asia

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SCI-FI/HORROR

In the future, assassins like Tasya (British actress Andrea Riseborough) can jack into the minds of others, ejecting the original consciousness and replacing it with their own. Once infected or possessed, the host - usually a member of the murder target's inner circle - waits to strike.

Flitting in and out of people's brains, however, comes with ugly side effects. This work of terror comes from Canadian writer-director Brandon Cronenberg, son of David Cronenberg, he of body horror classics Rabid (1977) and The Fly (1986).

The younger Cronenberg tips his hat to his father through the use of practical-effects gore that leans on the augmentation and mutilation of the flesh (note the R21 rating), a point he cheekily makes clear with the casting of Jennifer Jason Leigh as Girder, Tasya's boss. She was the game designer Geller in the elder Cronenberg's thriller Existenz (1999).

It is not all homage, though. There is a chilly contemporary sheen to this that is all the film-maker's own, a mood bolstered by powerful performances from Riseborough's killer and Christopher Abbot as Tate, the man whose body she has commandeered.