After Love (2020)
★★★★☆
After Love, Aleem Khan’s deeply involving feature debut, starring Joanna Scanlan, is a quietly moving study of devastating grief and unexpected love.
Cannes Film Festival
The Climb (2019)
★★★☆☆
In original, smart buddy comedy movie The Climb co-writer/directors Kyle Marvin and Michael Angelo Covino play two losers also called Kyle and Mike.
La Haine (1995) – new 4K restoration
★★★★★
Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine remastered remains a ticking bomb, full of seething energy ready to explode.
Les Misérables (2019)
★★★★☆
Les Misérables is an explosive first feature about simmering racial tensions in a Paris banlieu from Malian-French actor and director Ladj Ly.
Papicha (2019) ON DEMAND
★★★★☆
Papicha is a stunning female-centred drama freely inspired, its director Mounia Meddour says, by real events in Algeria in the 1990s.
Cannes Film Festival: Palm Dog of Palm Dogs Award 2020
★★★★☆
The Artist star is crowned Palm Dog of Palm Dogs 2020 in virtual Cannes ceremony for the award’s 20th anniversary.
The Whistlers (2019) – ON DEMAND
★★★★☆
The Whistlers (La Gomera) by Corneliu Porumboiu is a Romanian crime thriller with a twisting plot, lots of corruption and a black comedy feel.
WE ARE ONE: A GLOBAL FILM FESTIVAL – 29 MAY-7 JUNE 2020
★★★★☆
More than 20 film festivals around the world have joined together to stream movies for free on YouTube after the cancellation of annual showcases in Cannes and New York.
Dogs Don’t Wear Pants (2019) – on demand
★★★★☆
Despite its silly title, black comedy Dogs Don’t Wear Pants by J.-P. Valkeapää is a touching – if harrowing – study of an extreme way of overcoming corrosive grief.
The Truth (2019) – ON DEMAND
★★★★☆
Hirokazu Koreeda turns to Europe for a French-language family drama with comic undertones that spans the generations in The Truth.
Fire Will Come (O Que Arde) (2019) – ON DEMAND
★★★★☆
Fire Will Come is a prophetic, arresting and mesmerising love letter to nature by Oliver Laxe.
Bacurau (2019) – ON DEMAND
★★★★☆
Bacurau by Kleber Mendonça Filho is an exhilarating mixture of genres – political satire, western, science fiction – underpinned by savage political and social comment. It’s a blast.
And Then We Danced (2019)
★★★★☆
A deeply physical coming-of-age gay romance in the dance world, And Then We Danced directed by Levan Akin is an uplifting and inspiring feature about the path to queer liberation.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) – ON DEMAND
★★★★☆
Celine Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a sumptuously sensual lesbian love story set in 1770 that comments fiercely on the role of women in society – then and now.