Long a darling of the festival circuit, with idiosyncratic literary period dramas such as Story of My Death and Liberté, Spanish director Albert Serra now tackles his first project set in current times. Pacifiction, which was shot on tiny digital cameras that give the film a feverish, hyperreal colour palette, is set in French Polynesia and follows the French high commissioner, De Roller (Benoît Magimel) as he navigates the churning intrigue and political machinations in his domain. With its slow-burning build, it is an unsettling, atmospheric piece that has something of the unknowable quality of the central character, with his glassy diplomat’s smile and shark’s eyes, inscrutable behind his blue-lensed sunglasses.

• In cinemas now