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.
BFI London Film Festival
BFI London Film Festival 2023: 4–15 October
★★★★☆
BFI London Film Festival 2023 – programme
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.
Lanuna: A Yak in the Classroom (2019)
★★★★☆
Set in a remote village in the beautiful mountains of Bhutan, Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom is a charming, photogenic feature debut by writer/director Pawo Choyning Dorji.
Close (2022)
★★★★☆
Close by Lukas Dhont (Girl) is a heartbreaking film of two boys’ friendship.
All is Vanity (2021)
★★☆☆☆
All is Vanity directed by Marcos Mereles is a ‘Marmite’ feature debut.
BFI LFF 2022: 1976
★★★★☆
Chilean political thriller 1976 screening at the BFI London Film Festival is an unbearably tense and involving debut from actor turned director Manuela Martelli, starring award-winning Aline Kuppenheim.
Drive My Car (2021)
★★★★★
strong>Drive My Car, directed with a delicate, luminous touch by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, deservedly won the Oscar this week for Best Film International Feature, the first Japanese film ever to do so.
A Cop Movie (2021) (Una Película de Policías)
★★★★☆
Award-winning Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacio with A Cop Movie has made a brilliant, intriguing and innovative – and startlingly genre-unclassifiable – film, starring Mónica Del Carmen and Raúl Briones.
BFI LFF 2021: Drive My Car
★★★★☆
Drive My Car is directed with a delicate, luminous touch by Ryusuke Hamaguchi.
BFI LFF 2021: Boiling Point
★★★★☆
Boiling Point, directed in an amazing single take by Philip Barantini, stars a wonderful performance by Stephen Graham as a chef in a pressure-cooker kitchen.
Herself (2020)
★★★★☆
After escaping an abusive marriage, a young Irish mother’s plan to self-build a home is fraught with complications in director Phyllida Lloyd’s empowering Herself.
Ema (2019)
★★★★☆
Sometimes enigmatic and confusing, sometimes fiery with emotion, Pablo Larrain’s intriguing Ema peels the layers off a woman’s dance with death.
Rare Beasts (2019)
★★★★☆
Written by, directed by and starring Billie Piper, Rare Beasts, a self-styled ‘anti-romcom’, is a manic Munch-like scream about what it’s like to be a modern, thirty-something woman trying to have it all while there’s a crisis all around.