Holy Cow (2024)
★★★★☆
Holy Cow, co-written and directed by Louise Courvoisier, is a lovely, involving coming-of-age story set in rural France.
first feature
BFI Flare: The Pleasure is Mine (2024) (El Placer es Mío)
★★★☆☆
Young bisexual Antonio drifts through life lying, stealing, and using people while feeling incapable of love in writer-director Sacha Amaral’s Buenos Aires-set character study The Pleasure Is Mine.
BFI Flare: Departures (2025)
★★★☆☆
Benji is left broken after the end of his relationship with Jake. In flashback we’re taken through Benji’s difficult journey with Jake in the painful and funny Departures.
BFI Flare: Summer’s Camera (2024)
★★★★☆
A year after losing her father, teenager Summer falls for a football star, coming to learn about both herself and her late father in the process, in writer/director Divine Sung’s sensitive coming-of -age drama Summer’s Camera.
On Falling (2024)
★★★★☆
On Falling, a first feature directed by Laura Carreira, is a worthy addition to the Ken Loach trilogy on Sixteen Films: the lives of people struggling on low-wage or zero-hours contracts.
Berlinale: Paternal Leave (2025)
★★★★☆
Paternal Leave is charming and heartbreaking at the same time. It’s the debut feature written and directed by Alissa Jung.
Memories of a Burning Body (2024) (Memorias de un Cuerpo que Arde)
★★★★☆
Memories of a Burning Body is an incredibly moving, candid docufiction about older women’s sexuality, directed by award-winning Antonella Sudasassi Furniss.
BFI London Film Festival 2024: My Eternal Summer (2023) (Min Evige Sommer)
★★★☆☆
My Eternal Summer Sylvia Le Fanu is the heartfelt, bittersweet story of a teenager and her family’s emotions during a last summer together.
SAN SEBASTIÁN 2024: My Eternal Summer (2024) (Min Evige Sommer)
★★★☆☆
My Eternal Summer Sylvia Le Fanu is the heartfelt, bittersweet story of a teenager and her family’s emotions during a last summer together.
Girls Will Be Girls (2024)
★★★★☆
Girls Will Be Girls, writer/director Shuchi Talati’s first feature, is a well-observed dramatisation of the misogyny that affects the lives of girls and women.
The Queen of my Dreams (2023)
★★★☆☆
The Queen of my Dreams, Fawzia Mirza’s first feature, links two time lines and two continents with a mother and daughter’s shared love for Bollywood.
Toronto 2024: U Are The Universe (2024)
★★★★☆
U Are The Universe is Ukrainian writer and director Pavlo Ostrikov’s gem of an amazing first feature.
TORONTO 2024: The Party’s Over (2024) (Se acabó la fiesta)
★★★☆☆
Toronto: The Party’s Over directed by Elena Manrique is a black comedy that shows the underbelly of immigration.