Portuguese visual artist Catarina Vasconcelos’s debut is a gorgeously shot fictionalised documentary about longing and loss Films about dysfunctional families often call to mind Tolstoy’s line from the opening of Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” It struck me that the opposite might be true […]
Read More “The Metamorphosis of Birds review – a lyrical love letter to family”
After years of great roles in comedies such as The Thick of It and Moving On, the actor is now being feted for her devastating dramatic performance in After Love. She talks about ‘serious’ acting, a breakdown in her 20s and learning to fight for herself When Joanna Scanlan arrives, she is hidden beneath a […]
The intoxicating, party-hard capital of Germany goes straight to the head of Samuel Kay Forrest’s feature debut – and not in a good way From Wings of Desire to Run Lola Run, from Cate Shortland’s Berlin Syndrome to one-take wonder Victoria, quite a few film-makers have been seduced by the liberating possibilities of the German […]
Read More “HipBeat review – a male identity crisis in Berlin is pure cringe”
Éléonore Weber’s documentary, air-strike footage of pilots on night missions, could work well in a gallery This hypnotic meditation on modern warfare from Éléonore Weber is an experimental cine-essay that feels closer to a gallery installation than a documentary. Watching it is a bit of a test of concentration: 75 minutes of helicopter airstrike footage […]
Read More “There Will Be No More Night review – chilling meditation on modern warfare”
A surprise reappearance throws the life of middle-aged widow into otherworldly flux in this strangely affecting drama Here is an intriguing cine-novella from Georgian film-maker Tamar Shavgulidze, which is at first unassumingly contemporary and realist, but which then takes a deadpan left turn into something really strange; it becomes like something from the 1960s counterculture, […]
Read More “Comets review – a lovers’ reunion charged with cosmic poignancy”
The ripple effects of western imperialism are laid bare in this affecting doc about Creole people ejected from their homeland Fifty years ago, the entire Creole population of the Chagos Islands were forcibly removed from their own homes by British forces in order to make way for a US military base. Families were torn apart, […]
Read More “Another Paradise review – shining a light on the Chagos Islands travesty”
Courageous and absorbing film follows three young men in the resistance movement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Chronicling what was supposed to be the final chapter of Joseph Kabila’s presidency in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, this is a stark and gripping portrait of a country in the throes of a major […]
Read More “Kinshasa Makambo review – gripping account of Congo’s fight for democracy”
Mya Bollaers is superb as a trans woman forced to travel with her bigoted father in a film that can’t quite escape its own cliches Trans actor Mya Bollaers brings a personal stillness and confidence to this flawed road movie from Belgian film-maker Laurent Micheli. Bollaers works well with co-star Benoît Magimel and together they […]
Read More “Lola and the Sea review – trans woman goes on road trip with angry dad”
Sibling graverobbers spark off each other in the somewhat true story of an attempt to ransom the comedy legend’s body At one point in Stealing Chaplin, a sozzled huckster tries to pry open a Union Jack-draped coffin as Land of Hope and Glory rings out on the soundtrack. Maybe this somewhat amateurish but spunky low-budget […]
Read More “Stealing Chaplin review – charm pays in messy crime caper”
Found footage is collaged into the suggestion of an oppressive state being resisted in this absorbing, disturbing film Dalibor Baric is a Croatian artist and film-maker, who after many experimental gallery shorts is making a feature debut with this deeply weird quasi-noir animated reverie, which he writes, directs, animates, edits and for which he composes […]
