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Perfect Days
(2023)
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Elena Lazic
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One of the film’s most original aspects is its embedded position within a recognisable and extremely contemporary reality, where this kind of existential reflection is usually hard to come by.
Posted May 26, 2023
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Riddle Of Fire
(2023)
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Elena Lazic
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[Its] subtle undercurrent of melancholy, as well as its passing commentary about the way technology is depriving kids from living out any true adventures make it more substantial than the superficial nostalgic throwback it initially seems to be.
Posted May 24, 2023
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The Buriti Flower
(2023)
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Elena Lazic
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The film’s strength is such that it eventually becomes impossible not to look at this beautiful place without feeling a real sense of urgency and alarm.
Posted May 24, 2023
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Lost Country
(2023)
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Elena Lazic
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[It's] a despairing and pained film, shot with an emotional reserve that suggests torrents of sorrow running just below the surface; it is only a shame that when those emotions do emerge, they feel rather too sleek and simple to ring perfectly true.
Posted May 24, 2023
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Déserts
(2023)
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Elena Lazic
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The shift in tone is so brutal that this second part of the film, coming as it does after the more dynamic first half, is difficult to fully appreciate.
Posted May 18, 2023
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Museum of the Revolution
(2021)
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Vladan Petkovic
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We see... two women beaten, bruised and broken by their lives – but still not giving up.
Posted May 18, 2023
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The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
(2022)
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Elena Lazic
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It’s a surprisingly frank look at a certain British way of life, polite and unassuming but hiding debilitating levels of repression, a harsh reality that Harold’s momentum can only partially conceal.
Posted May 04, 2023
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Delikado
(2022)
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Vladan Petkovic
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An intimate story of hands-on environmental activism and a revelation of the true extent of Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs...
Posted Apr 20, 2023
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Typist Artist Pirate King
(2022)
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Laurence Boyce
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While it is sometimes messy and chaotic, there’s a passion and a verve here that give the film genuine heart.
Posted Mar 16, 2023
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Electric Malady
(2022)
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Elena Lazic
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While this respectful approach is understandable in the context of a documentary about William and not about this as-yet-unrecognised illness, it does make for a rather repetitive and monotonous film.
Posted Mar 08, 2023
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Perpetrator
(2023)
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Vladan Petkovic
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Jennifer Reeder's new feminist horror treads the uncertain path between seriousness and campiness, but its atmospheric power and affirmative message are undeniable
Posted Mar 07, 2023
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My Name is Alfred Hitchcock
(2022)
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Laurence Boyce
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Cousins, as erudite, persuasive and educated as he is, always approaches the material with the enthusiasm of a fan, and his observations and claims often invite fulsome discussion and debate.
Posted Mar 03, 2023
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Infinity Pool
(2023)
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Elena Lazic
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Skarsgård excels at playing men in such profound denial that they barely know themselves and their own desires, desperately clinging to prefabricated models of masculinity instead (see The Northman), and this might be his best performance to date.
Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Mamacruz
(2023)
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Laurence Boyce
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A personal and affecting piece of work that is both an achingly human portrait of a woman exploring her desires in her later years and a celebration of female sexuality.
Posted Jan 26, 2023
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The Fishbowl
(2023)
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Elena Lazic
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Its images seem to shiver with an unsettling sense of urgency.
Posted Jan 26, 2023
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Passages
(2023)
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Elena Lazic
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If Frankie... to mind the cinema of Éric Rohmer, then Passages recalls that of Maurice Pialat... It’s a style that fits like a glove with Sachs’ emotional intelligence, his eye for dramatic tension in everyday life and his sense of humour.
Posted Jan 26, 2023
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Smoke Sauna Sisterhood
(2023)
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Laurence Boyce
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Those seeing Smoke Sauna Sisterhood will certainly feel uplifted upon seeing it.
Posted Jan 26, 2023
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Fantastic Machine
(2023)
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Laurence Boyce
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The huge amount of archive footage is well chosen, with much that surprises.
Posted Jan 26, 2023
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Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis)
(2022)
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Elena Lazic
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It still seems a shame to see Anton Corbijn turn to talking-head interviews and archive footage... This format almost inevitably gives exciting and, at the time, entirely unpredictable developments a dull, nostalgic sheen.
Posted Jan 26, 2023
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Summerlight... and Then Comes the Night
(2022)
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Elena Lazic
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The sometimes dark, sometimes absurdist comedy (courtesy of actor Þorsteinn Bachmann, most of all) peppered throughout does help navigate tonal shifts. In fact, the cast as a whole is what most anchors the film to a semblance of reality,
Posted Dec 22, 2022
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Le Prince
(2021)
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Kaleem Aftab
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Although uneven in pacing, Prince is a film that provides food for thought and uses the idea of art being about representation to play and bend archetypes.
Posted Dec 22, 2022
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The Stranger
(2021)
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Kaleem Aftab
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The Stranger shares not only a title with the famous Albert Camus work, but also its focus on a man immersed in an existential crisis when faced with the absurd.
Posted Dec 22, 2022
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A Bunch of Amateurs
(2022)
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Laurence Boyce
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A thoroughly moving and ultimately joyful affair.
Posted Dec 22, 2022
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Young & Afraid
(2021)
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Laurence Boyce
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Even though much in the movie is swathed in darkness, it is ultimately a paean to the fact that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Posted Dec 22, 2022
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Hide and Seek
(2021)
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Elena Lazic
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Fiore expertly combines observations on wildly different scales -- from the details of a Christmas tree on fire to the patterns that repeat across generations -- to reach a kind of ecstatic truth that is as beautiful as it is heart wrenching.
Posted Dec 22, 2022
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Zátopek
(2021)
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Kaleem Aftab
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With a light-entertainment tone, a classical filmmaking style and impressive recreations of Olympic stadia, it aspires to be a Czech Chariots of Fire, but like so many of the runners on show, it can't quite make it to the finish line.
Posted Dec 22, 2022
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Kristina
(2022)
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Elena Lazic
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At only 90 minutes, however... the film avoids lingering just for the sake of it, and packs a lot into its short runtime. This richness, as well as the feeling of introspection that imbues the film, also come down to Kristina herself.
Posted Nov 18, 2022
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The Blaze
(2022)
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Elena Lazic
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Lutz’s and Dussolier’s grounded performances held the potential of a moving film that would not need to take shortcuts to emotion.
Posted Nov 03, 2022
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Inland
(2022)
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Elena Lazic
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One of the latest examples of young British filmmakers daring to play with form and the traditional rules of storytelling.
Posted Oct 21, 2022
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The Origin
(2022)
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Manuela Lazic
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Quite uncommonly and paradoxically, the reveal gives more legitimacy to what came before it.
Posted Oct 21, 2022
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Tantura
(2022)
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Vladan Petkovic
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Tantura is an extremely well-researched film and is very competently put together, with numerous expert testimonies and priceless, previously unseen archive footage and photographs that leave little doubt as to what essentially happened...
Posted Oct 18, 2022
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My Policeman
(2022)
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Elena Lazic
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The intention is to contrast the old couple’s grey yet peaceful life with the intensity of their youth, in order to better highlight their present shared denial. But all it does is underline the superficial and trite understanding of closeted life.
Posted Oct 13, 2022
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Forever
(2022)
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Elena Lazic
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Forever is a well-made and emotionally attuned film, but almost to a fault.
Posted Sep 24, 2022
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Have You Seen This Woman?
(2022)
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Elena Lazic
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An unpredictable and slippery journey through an identity in crisis, Have You Seen This Woman? bucks convention at every turn to explore the warped needs and desires, the regrets and the imagination of a woman in search of herself.
Posted Sep 15, 2022
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Rebel
(2022)
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Kaleem Aftab
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It's a movie that must be seen to be believed. This fascinating work proves why it's essential for cinema to have a diverse range of voices telling the stories, and that’s what brings about these incredible shocks and surprises.
Posted Sep 08, 2022
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The Son
(2022)
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Elena Lazic
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Zeller plays with our expectations by revealing his characters to be more self-aware than we had initially assumed.
Posted Sep 08, 2022
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Innocence
(2022)
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Elena Lazic
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What is immediately remarkable about the documentary is the way it manages to be both brutally down to earth and incredibly poetic.
Posted Sep 08, 2022
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Skin Deep
(2022)
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Elena Lazic
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Skin Deep does hit enough of the right notes for us to forgive its few imperfections, and what could have been a glib sci-fi premise turns into an unexpected and moving portrait of love as rooted in acceptance.
Posted Sep 08, 2022
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Athena
(2022)
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Elena Lazic
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Alongside the large-scale action, Gavras also spends plenty of time on the faces of his actors. Free from the burden of realism, they are all conduits for pure emotion.
Posted Sep 08, 2022
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The March on Rome
(2022)
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Elena Lazic
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Feelings of apprehension and scepticism never fully subside as Cousins builds his argument more by paying attention to uncanny echoes and resonances through history, than to sequences of facts or the logical building blocks of complex arguments.
Posted Sep 02, 2022
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3/4
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Neon Spring
(2022)
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Laurence Boyce
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As a coming-of-age tale, it's something of a well-worn cinematic (and cultural) genre. Many of the clichés of the genre are out in full force in Neon Spring, its knowledge about said clichés make this an often intriguing film.
Posted Aug 23, 2022
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Vesper
(2022)
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Laurence Boyce
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Many of the beats and visuals of the movie echo cinema past. But Buožytė and Samper still manage to put a very unique stamp on proceedings to create a consistently thought-provoking and immersive affair.
Posted Jul 08, 2022
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4/5
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January
(2022)
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Laurence Boyce
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Love and coming of age are interrupted by harsh reality in Viesturs Kairišs’ evocative period piece
Posted Jun 17, 2022
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Woman on the Roof
(2022)
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Laurence Boyce
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Anna Jadowska’s latest film is a stark and compelling examination of twilight-year malaise and a societal attitude towards women that is fundamentally broken
Posted Jun 16, 2022
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My Love Affair with Marriage
(2022)
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Laurence Boyce
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Latvian director Signe Baumane returns with a gloriously fun new feature that melds musical, science, animation and female rebellion
Posted Jun 16, 2022
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The Dam
(2022)
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Kaleem Aftab
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The delivery of the film is so opaque that it leaves room for many interpretations, which is both The Dam's strength and its weakness.
Posted May 27, 2022
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Under the Fig Trees
(2021)
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Kaleem Aftab
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Sehiri manages to impart a sense of sisterhood, and the importance of it, especially in a patriarchal world where these girls must bring about change in order for them to progress.
Posted May 26, 2022
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God's Creatures
(2022)
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Kaleem Aftab
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Like Aileen, the movie takes its time to find its feet and occasionally threatens to veer off balance, but eventually, it hits surer ground.
Posted May 26, 2022
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Mediterranean Fever
(2022)
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Kaleem Aftab
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Director Maha Haj has created a black comedy full of surprises.
Posted May 26, 2022
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Corsage
(2022)
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Kaleem Aftab
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Some will say this is the secret royal love child of Pablo Larraín’s Spence rand Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, but it’s better than them both.
Posted May 20, 2022
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