★★★★☆
BFI LFF 2022: Pacifiction, a hypnotically paced, dark political thriller set in French Tahiti, directed by Catalan Albert Serra, enjoys the Polynesian island’s beauty, but also its inherent vulnerability to outside geo-political threats.
★★★★☆
Holy Spider, angrily written and directed by Ali Abbasi (Border), and screening at the BFI London Film Festival, is a grisly, reality-based story of violence against women in a patriarchal, theocratic society.
★★★★☆
Godland, directed by Hlynur Pálmason, is an incredibly visually beautiful and involving unfolding story of the consequences of a Danish Lutheran priest’s loss of faith in 19th-century Iceland.
★★★★☆
BFI LFF 2022:No Bears , screening at the BFI LFF 2022, is Jafar Panahi’s latest multi-layered film, boldly showing his plight and that of filmmaking itself in the context of Iran’s draconian restrictions.
★★★★☆
Chilean political thriller 1976 screening at the BFI London Film Festival is an unbearably tense and involving debut from actor turned director Manuela Martelli, starring award-winning Aline Kuppenheim.
★★★★☆
Kanaval, an immersive documentary by Leah Gordon and Eddie Hutton-Mills screened at the BFI London Film Festival reveals the traditional and cultural significance of carnival in Haiti with striking footage and in Haitians own words.
★★★★☆
A compelling woman-led re-imagining of the life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria in Corsage, directed by Marie Kreutzer and starring Vicky Krieps , screened in the BFI London Film Festival 2022.
★★★☆☆
Sally Hawkins stars as an amateur historian in search of the grave of King Richard III in director Stephen Frears’ uplifting true-story drama The Lost King.
★★★☆☆
Screen legend Charlotte Rampling is magnificently ferocious as a reluctant invalid, estranged bad grandma Ruth in Matthew J Saville’s debut Juniper.
★★★☆☆
Sparks fly when Mark meets Warren at the rugby club and soon the pair are embroiled in an illicit affair facing consequences on and off pitch in director Matt Carter’s In From The Side.
★★★★☆
It Is In Us All is a strange and mystical film debut by Antonia Campbell-Hughes. held together by Cosmo Jarvis’s extraordinarily visceral central performance, set against awe-inspiring, massive Irish landscapes.
★★★☆☆
The unexpected consequences and repercussions of a terrible accident in the Moroccan desert are explored in The Forgiven, John Michael McDonagh’s adaptation of Lawrence Osbourne’s 2012 novel, starring Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain.
★★☆☆☆
Black Mail, written and directed by Obi Emelonye, is a slick, London-set plot-driven thriller with an appealing central character played by Nigerian star OC Ukeje.
★★★★★
In Hit the Road by Panah Panahi an Iranian family say so much and yet leave so much unsaid.