The Nile Hilton Incident (2017)
★★★☆☆
Tarik Saleh’s The Nile Hilton Incident unravels a noir thriller against the political background of Egypt’s revolution in 2011.
France
Berlinale: Transit (2018)
★★★★☆
Christian Petzold’s fascinating present-day World War II film Transit is thematically and narratively dense, but there’s nothing dense in the way it goes about handling it.
Loveless (2017)
★★★★★
Shown through a couple’s reactions to the disappearance of their son, Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Loveless (Nelyubov) is a crushing comment on a loveless society and its people.
A Woman’s Life (2017)
★★★★☆
A Woman’s Life is a beautifully staged and acted period drama by Stéphane Brizé that unfolds over decades in 19th century France.
Ava (2017)
★★★★☆
In Ava, the increasing darkness of Léa Mysius’ direction echoes the encroaching blindness of its young heroine in a strikingly original coming-of-age story.
Mountains May Depart (2015)
★★★★☆
Jia Zhang Ke’s Mountains May Depart is an epic vision of decades of change in China, its people and diaspora, with a compelling central character.
Happy End (2017)
★★★★☆
Michael Haneke’s Happy End deconstructs the internal dynamics of a wealthy bourgeois family living a life oblivious to the human beings around them, with chilling results.
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Lost in Paris (2016)
★★★★☆
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Félicité (2017)
★★★★☆
The (African) portrait of a lady, Alain Gomis’ Félicité is a dazzling, vibrant depiction of Africa, womanhood and dreams of a life.
Call Me By Your Name (2017)
★★★★☆
A delightfully nostalgic and evocative portrait of young love, Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name has all of the pleasure and only some of the pain.
Thelma (2017)
★★★★☆
In Thelma, both the main protagonist and director Joachim Trier realise the potential of her psychic powers, culminating in a taut and shocking narrative that refuses to bow down to one particular genre.
French Film Festival UK: Slack Bay (Ma Loute) (2016)
★★★★☆
Divided into stalwarts of French cinema and non-professional actors, Bruno Dumont’s crime caper Slack Bay exposes the grotesque in everyone.
French Film Festival UK: Wùlu (2016)
★★★★☆
Daouda Coulibaly’s Wùlu is a must-see, tense, contemporary West African thriller.
25th French Film Festival UK 2017
★★★★☆
Over six weeks from 2 November – 17 December, the 25th UK French Film Festival presents 46 films in 300 screenings in 30 cities and 34 cinemas.