Telluride film festival - Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, the Irish artists and film-makers known for their eerie psychological dramas and complex, self-questioning essay films, have returned with Act 3, a documentary that is somehow both a deep dive into their 40-year relationship and a nascent drama about queer art icons Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore. Because why just reflect on your own creative partnership when you can also tackle art history's most intriguing lesbian couple?

The duo, who have built a career on metatextual navel-gazing (affectionately referred to as their 'Alfred Hitchcock' and 'Chris Marker' sides), have crafted a film that's structured around a strangely self-aware dialogue between Molloy and Lawlor. They speak quietly and slowly, as if hypnotized, each holding the camera on the other in shot-reverse-shot - a technique that raises the question: is this intimacy or just a very elaborate game of 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours'?

Their previous work, like The Future Tense, served as a commentary on a planned movie about pro-IRA heiress Rose Dugdale, which eventually became the drama Baltimore. Act 3 follows a similar pattern, potentially heralding a conventional drama about its notional subject. But for now, we get this absorbing, stylized reflection on life, art, and the messy intersection of the two. Because nothing says 'romantic getaway' like filming your partner in extreme close-up while discussing your shared history in hushed tones.