All We Imagine As Light (2024)
★★★★☆
All We Imagine As Light is a beautiful film about the contrasting lives of three women in India, the second film directed by award-winning Payal Kapadia.
France
The Crime is Mine (2023) (Mon Crime)
★★★★☆
The Crime is Mine directed by François Ozon is a fast-moving comedy wolf in sheep’s clothing about gay rights and women’s equality, starring Isabelle Huppert.
BFI LFF 2024: All We Imagine As Light (2024)
★★★★☆
All We Imagine As Light is a beautiful film about the contrasting lives of three women in India, the second film directed by award-winning Payal Kapadia.
BFI London Film Festival 2024: Aïcha (2023)
★★★☆☆
Aïcha, directed by Mehdi Barsaoui, is a gripping, thrilling study of the evolution of a young woman as she tries to find a new life and new identity after being assumed dead, amid endemic corruption in Tunisia.
BFI LFF 2024: Who Do I Belong To (2024) (Mé el Aïn)
★★★☆☆
Who Do I Belong To, an unsettlingly topical first feature by Meryam Joobeur, looks at identity in a post-ISIS world and sets out to challenge perceptions and prejudices.
The Goldman Case (2023)
★★★★☆
The Goldman Case directed by Cédric Kahn grippingly reconstructs the 1976 trial of voluble and charismatic leftist Pierre Goldman and tackles antisemitism and history.
Toronto 2024: Shepherds (2024) (Bergers)
★★★☆☆
Shepherds (Bergers) directed by Sophie Deraspe is a lyrical drama based on Mathyas Lefebure’s book about rejecting his previous life and learning to be a shepherd in Provence.
VENICE 2024: Aïcha (2024)
★★★☆☆
Aïcha, directed by Mehdi Barsaoui, is a thrilling study of a young woman’s life amid endemic corruption in Tunisia, as she tries to find a new life and new identity.
VENICE 2024: The Mohican (2024) (Le Mohican)
★★★☆☆
The Mohican directed by Frédéric Farrucci is a beautifully shot, deeply felt film about an ordinary goatherd who becomes a social media hero in Corsica when he defends his beliefs.
VENICE 2024: Quiet Life (2024)
★★★☆☆
Quiet Life, directed by Alexander Avranas, shows how the stress of being a Russian refugee in Sweden can result in resignation syndrome (a ‘shutting down’).
VENICE 2024: Super happy forever (2024)
★★★★☆
Super Happy Forever by Kohei Igarashi is a star-studded Japanese love story in reverse.
About Dry Grasses (2023) (Kuru Otlar Üstüne)
★★★★★
About Dry Grasses by Nuri Bilge Ceylan is another masterpiece from the Turkish auteur.
Orlando, My Political Biography (2023) (Orlando, Ma Biographie Politique)
★★★☆☆
Orlando, My Political Biography by trans activist Paul B Preciado is a moving documentary inspired by Virginia Woolf’s novel.
Heart of an Oak (2022) (Le Chêne)
★★★☆☆
The Heart of an Oak, directed by Laurent Charbonnier and Michel Seydoux, edited by Sylvie Lager, is a year of magnificent photography in the life of the creatures – animals, birds and insects – that live in or around a huge 200-year-old oak tree in a forest in France.