Banel & Adama (2023)
★★★☆☆
Lusciously beautiful: the doomed romance in Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s poetic debut feature Banel & Adama takes place amid the severe effects of climate change in remote northeastern Senegal.
BFI London Film Festival 2023
Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World (2023) (Nu astepta prea mult de la sfârsitul lumii)
★★★★★
Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World is a wide-ranging, vicious satire on the post-communist, rampantly privatised, chaotically capitalist economy in Romania and everything else in modern European life, by Radu Jude.
Four Daughters (2023) (Les Filles d’Olfa)
★★★★★
Four Daughters is a powerful and emotionally compelling mixture of documentary and drama directed by Kaouther Ben Hania that examines the roots of fundamentalism and how women pass on self-imposed repression through the generations.
Perfect Days (2023)
★★★★☆
Perfect Days is acclaimed director Wim Wenders’ Tokyo-set film for which Koji Yakusho won a well-deserved Best Actor award.
The Taste of Things (2023) (The Pot-au-Feu) (La Passion de Dodin Bouffant)
★★★★☆
The Taste of Things, directed by Tran Anh Hung is so, so French. It’s beautiful and it’s a 19th-century love story that is also food and beauty obsessed.
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.
The Holdovers (2023)
★★★★☆
December 1970, a grumpy teacher forced to stay on campus over the holidays gradually bonds with a volatile teenager in Alexander Payne’s latest comedy drama The Holdovers.
The Lost Boys (2023) (Le Paradis)
★★★☆☆
Two teenage boys in a juvenile detention centre develop a passionate bond which is tested when one of them approaches his release in director and co-writer Zeno Graton’s The Lost Boys.
BFI LFF 2023: In Camera (2023)
★★★★☆
In Camera, written and directed by Naqqash Khalid, is a debut satirical drama full of pain about the racism experienced by second-generation Asians in Britain.
BFI LFF 2023: Award Winners
★★★★☆
BFI LFF 2023: Award Winners
BFI LFF 2023: Chasing Chasing Amy (2023)
★★★★☆
In Chasing Chasing Amy director Sav Rodgers explains in a moving documentary of self-discovery what Kevin Smith’s iconic 1997 romcom Chasing Amy has meant to LGBTQ+ people over the years.
BFI LFF 2023: Wilding (2023)
★★★☆☆
Wilding, based on Isabella Tree’s book, directed by David Allen, is a lyrical hymn to the self-healing of the English countryside.
BFI LFF 2023: The Holdovers (2023)
★★★★☆
December 1970, a grumpy teacher forced to stay on campus over the holidays gradually bonds with a volatile teenager in Alexander Payne’s latest comedy drama The Holdovers.
BFI LFF 2023: Only the River Flows (2023)
★★★★☆
Only the River Flows is a scintillating Chinese neo-noir, the third film directed by Wei Shujun.