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’).
Sweden
Opponent (2023) (Motståndaren)
★★★★☆
Opponent, written and directed by Milad Alami, is a powerful, must-see film about the refugee experience and conflicted desires.
The Settlers (2023) (Los Colonos)
★★★☆☆
The Settlers is an angry, violent Western-type version of the brutal colonial birth of Chile by first-time filmmaker Felipe Gálvez.
Cairo Conspiracy (2022) previously Boy from Heaven (Walad min al-Janna)
★★★☆☆
Adam arrives in Cairo to study at the renowned Al-Azhar University and unexpectedly finds himself drawn into the centre of a dangerous world of religious and political power in writer/director Tarik Saleh’s compelling thriller.
Triangle of Sadness (2021)
★★★★☆
Triangle of Sadness, Ruben Ôstland’s second Palme d’or winner, is an uncompromising black contemporary satire.
BFI LFF 2022: Triangle of Sadness
★★★★☆
Triangle of Sadness, Ruben Ôstland’s second Palme d’or winner screening at the BFI LFF 2022 on 11 and 12 October 2022 , is an uncompromising blackly contemporary satire.
Another Round (2020) – On demand and in cinemas now – Oscar winner
★★★☆☆
Another Round (Druk) reunites dogme director Thomas Vinterberg (Festen) and his brooding star Mads Mikkelson to earn a 2021 Oscar for Best Film in a Foreign Language..
Undergods (2020)
★★★☆☆
Undergods, Chino Moya’s disturbing first feature set in a dystopian future, has its world premiere at the Fantasia Film Festival and is released now.
The Exception (2019) – On demand
★★★★☆
Working relations between four women working at a Danish research facility escalate dangerously when death threats are received and suspicions start to turn within the team in Jesper W. Nielsen’s The Exception.
The Roads Not Taken (2020)
★★★☆☆
The Roads Not Taken has the best of motives – it’s acclaimed director Sally Potter’s way of conveying how her brother’s dementia fractured his personality. It’s very personal, maybe too personal.
Koko-di Koko-da (2019) – on demand
★★★★☆
Psychological horror Koko-di Koko-da is a genre-bending, adult riff on a Swedish nursery rhyme, directed by Johannes Nyholm.
Border (2018)
★★★★★
Ali Abbassi’s Border (Gräns) is startlingly original, a magical fantasy (or is it?) that blends the real world with Nordic myth and folklore.
And Then We Danced (2019)
★★★★☆
A deeply physical coming-of-age gay romance in the dance world, And Then We Danced directed by Levan Akin is an uplifting and inspiring feature about the path to queer liberation.
BFI LFF 2019: COMPETITION WINNERS
★★★★☆
BFI LFF 2019: COMPETITION WINNERS