BFI Flare 2024: Our Son (2023)
★★★★☆
When Gabriel and Nicky’s marriage comes to a sudden end, they are soon locked in a tumultuous custody battle for their eight-year-old son Owen in director Bill Oliver’s moving divorce drama Our Son.
★★★
The Sweet East (2023)
★★★☆☆
The Sweet East is cinematographer Sean Price Williams’ directorial debut, with a screenplay by film critic Nick Pinkerton. It stars Talia Ryder (Never Rarely Sometimes Always) as a contemporary Alice in Wonderland, a student on a dreamlike road trip, satirising US subcultures.
Baltimore (2023)
★★★☆☆
Baltimore (misleading title) is a biopic of the life of revolutionary class warrior Rose Dugdale in Ireland, written and directed by husband and wife team Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor.
BFI Flare 2024: What a Feeling (2024)
★★★☆☆
What a feeling by Kat Rohrer is a romcom of two middle-aged women, a late ‘coming of age’.
BFI Flare 2024: 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…
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BFI Flare 2024: Riley (2023)
★★★☆☆
High school football star Dakota Riley is winning on the playing field but secretly is grappling with his burgeoning sexuality which threatens to derail his life in writer-director Benjamin Howard’s autobiographical coming-of-age drama Riley.
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.
Driving Mum (2022) (Á Ferð með Mömmu)
★★★☆☆
Driving Mum by Icelandic director Hilmar Oddsson is darkly strange, absurd and poignant.
Berlinale 2024: Young Hearts (2024)
★★★☆☆
Heart-warming coming-of-age story Young Hearts is award-winning Anthony Schatteman’s feature debut at the Berlinale.
Berlinale 2024: The Visitor (2024)
★★★☆☆
The Visitor is a provocative feature allegory of contemporary British issues by Bruce LaBruce, the Canadian artist, writer, filmmaker, photographer and underground director.
The Letter Writer (2024)
★★★☆☆
The Letter Writer by Layla Kaylif is about the painful coming of age, emotionally and politically, for a boy and a country.
Your Fat Friend (2023)
★★★☆☆
Your Fat Friend, a documentary directed by Jeanie Finlay, is the touching story of obesity rights campaigner Aubrey Gordon.
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.
IFFR 2024: Natatorium (2024)
★★★☆☆
Natatorium is a female-centred, atmospheric thriller debut in a World Premiere at the IFFR for Iceland’s Helena Stefánsdóttir.