VENICE 2024: Manas (2024)
★★★☆☆
Manas by Marianna Brennand takes us into turmoil in a closed Amazonian community.
features
Firebrand (2023)
★★★★☆
Firebrand directed by Karim Aïnouz is an entertaining slice of simplified English history starring Alicia Vikander, Jude Law, Eddie Marsan and Simon Russell Beale.
Only the River Flows (2023)
★★★★☆
Only the River Flows is a scintillating Chinese neo-noir, the third film directed by Wei Shujun.
LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL 2024: Mexico 86 (2024)
★★★★☆
Mexico 86 by César Diaz is the tension-fraught story of a mother’s love versus her idealism, against the background of the World Cup.
LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL 2024: 7-17 AUGUST 2024
★★★★☆
Locarno Film Festival 2024
About Dry Grasses (2023) (Kuru Otlar Üstüne)
★★★★★
About Dry Grasses by Nuri Bilge Ceylan is another masterpiece from the Turkish auteur.
BFI LFF 2021: Brother’s Keeper (2021) (Okul tirasi)
★★★☆☆
Brother’s Keeper: Ferit Karaha’s tragic tale of boarding school brutality to Kurdish boys in snowy eastern Turkey.
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.
Sheffield Documentary Festival: The Boy and the Suit of Lights (2024) (El niño y el traje de luces)
★★★★☆
The Boy and the Suit of Lights is a raw documentary by Inma De Reyes that uncovers an insider’s view of some of the tensions between traditional and modern Spain.
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.
The Small Back Room (1948)
★★★★☆
Vintage classic The Small Back Room, Powell and Pressburger’s must-see 1948 noir masterpiece, has been restored and released in new 4K.
A House in Jerusalem (2023)
★★★☆☆
Palestinian filmmakers Muyad and Rami Alayan prick and prod Israel’s conscience about dispossession in A House in Jerusalem.
Cannes Film Festival 2024: 22 May: Semaine de la Critique Awards
★★★★★
Cannes Film Festival 2024: Semaine de la Critique Awards
Cannes Film Festival 2024: Day 5: 18 May: Most People Die On Sundays (2024) (Los domingos mueren más personas)
★★★☆☆
Most People Die On Sundays, written and directed by and starred in by Iair Said, is a very personal, heartfelt portrait of the absurdities of life and death.