Nezouh (2022)
★★★★☆
Nezouh by Soudade Kaadan is a teenage coming-of-age story of finding hope in devastated war-torn Syria.
Cannes Film Festival 2022
Smoking Causes Coughing (2022) (Fumer Fait Tousser)
★★★☆☆
Smoking Causes Coughing, the brainchild of über-absurdist Quentin Dupieux, is bizarre, very, very silly, strangely disquieting and rather flimsy.
Mother and Son (2022) (Un Petit Frère)
★★★★☆
Mother and Son is an ★★★★☆
involving, compassionate film by Léonor Serraille that poignantly shows the difficulties and the effects on a family – both positive and negative – of immigration into a strange country.
The Eight Mountains (2022) (Le Otto Montagne)
★★☆☆☆
Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s The Eight Mountains, which they adapted from Paolo Cognetti’s novel Le Otto Montagne, tells the story of the friendship of Pietro and Bruno from boys to men in their 30s from the perspective of Pietro.
The Blue Caftan (2022)
★★★★☆
The Blue Caftan by Maryam Touzani is a beautiful film celebrating understated love and tenderness in everyday life.
Love According to Dalva (2022)
★★★☆☆
Love According to Dalva, directed by Emmanuelle Nicot, features some extraordinarily intense performances in a paedophilia drama where the victim refuses to accept she is a child who has been abused.
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.
Pacifiction: Tourment sur les îles (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 threats.
Godland (2022) (Volaða land)(Vanskabte Land)
★★★★☆
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.
1976 (2022)
★★★★☆
Chilean political thriller 1976 is an unbearably tense and involving debut from actor turned director Manuela Martelli, starring award-winning Aline Kuppenheim.
Close (2022)
★★★★☆
Close by Lukas Dhont (Girl) is a heartbreaking film of two boys’ friendship.
Broker (2022)
★★★★☆
Broker by Hirokazu Koreeda, starring acclaimed actor Song Kang-ho and K-Pop star Lee Ji-eun, is a heartwarming tragi-comic Korean drama about families that form themselves by choice not birth.
EO (2022)
span style=”color:#D1A316″>★★★★☆
EO, veteran director Jerzy Skolimowski’s compelling, beautifully shot homage to Bresson’s classic, takes a donkey’s eye view of the vagaries of life.
Decision to Leave (2022)
★★★★☆
Cannes-award-winning unforgettable Decision to Leave directed with pyrotechnical flair by Park Chan-wook is a haunting Korean neo-noir and yet so much more.