Perfect Days (2023)
★★★★☆
Perfect Days is acclaimed director Wim Wenders’ Tokyo-set film for which Koji Yakusho won a well-deserved Best Actor award.
Alexa Dalby
Berlinale 2024: My Summer with Irène (2024) (Quell’estate con Irène)
★★★★☆
My Summer with Irène, directed by Carlo Sironi, is a beautiful summer elegy by the sea for two girls together.
Berlinale 2024: My New Friends (2024) (Les gens d’à côté)
★★★★☆
My New Friends written and directed by André Téchiné is an absorbing debate on a contemporary issue starring the wonderful Isabelle Huppert.
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.
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.
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.
Berlinale 2024: Programme and line-up
★★★★☆
Berlinale 2024: line-up
IFFR 2024: Natatorium (2024)
★★★☆☆
Natatorium is a female-centred, atmospheric thriller debut in a World Premiere at the IFFR for Iceland’s Helena Stefánsdóttir.
Jackdaw (2023)
★★★★☆
Jackdaw directed by Jamie Childs is a fast-moving action thriller that beautifully exploits the northeast’s brutal post-industrial landscape and breath-taking country.
Padre Pio (2022)
★★★★☆
Abel Ferrara’s Padre Pio links religious fervour, the growth of fascism and socialism, and the Ukraine invasion, and is based on true events culminating on 14 October 1920.
This Blessed Plot (2023)
★★★★☆
This Blessed Plot: this charming film, directed by Marc Isaacs, celebrates this disappearing England and its real people, current and historical.