A talented singer and actress, Misty Green (Rosalind Eleazar) once starred on a hit TV show but now urgently struggles for one piece of career good luck to avoid becoming homeless. Chris Rock’s latest is more than your standard making-it-in showbiz tale: The writer/director’s vivid eye for atmosphere, locations, and the incidental striving, hopeful characters Misty encounters, along with Kira Kelly’s vivid sun-drunk cinematography, generates a strikingly truthful portrait of Los Angeles as a place where you can go from being Nobody to Somebody in the blink of an eye, only to return to oblivion a moment later. Daniel Kaluuya as Misty’s sweet but unstable brother; Anna Kendrick, her sharp-eyed BFF; Adam Driver, a sleazy club-crawling filmmaker; and Rock himself as a career-challenged director trying for a comeback are superb in support. But it is Eleazar’s sexy, funny, anguished performance that makes Misty Green a mesmerizing experience. —Larry Gross

Rosalind Eleazar will receive the MVFF Award for Breakthrough Performance in Misty Green. Eleazar's standout turn marks her as one of the most exciting new talents to watch. Rosalind Eleazar is a British actress on stage, screen, and television. She made an auspicious feature film debut in the role of Agnes in The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019), followed by a filmed theatrical performance of Uncle Vanya (2020), I'm Not in Love (2021), Rose of Nevada (2025), and Frank & Louis (2026). On television, she is known for Slow Horses (2022-2026) and Missing You (2025). In her latest film, Misty Green, she plays the titular character at the heart of Chris Rock's film industry satire.