Festival Review: Fassbinder To Love Without Demands (2015)
★★★★☆
With unique archive footage, Christian Braad Thomsen’s Fassbinder To Love Without Demands delivers an honest and intelligent portrait of the German director.
documentary
Dancing In Jaffa (2013)
★★★☆☆
Israeli and Palestininan schoolchildren overcoming their prejudices as they are taught to ballroom dance together is movingly captured in a fly-on-the-wall documentary.
Festival Review: Sworn Virgin / Vergine Giurata (2015)
★★★★☆
With a great performance from Alba Rohrwacher, Laura Bispuri’s Sworn Virgin is a stunning but underwhelming glimpse into celibacy in the Albanian mountains.
Festival Review: The Pearl Button / El botón de nácar (2015)
★★★★☆
A cosmological constellation of water, native tribes and Chile’s disappeared, Patricio Guzmán’s The Pearl Button is a powerful wave of connections.
Festival Review: Tough Love / Härte (2015)
★★★☆☆
From pimp to karate teacher, Rosa von Praunheim’s Härte paints a portrait through documentary and drama of a life of violence after a childhood of abuse.
La Maison De La Radio (2013)
★★★★☆
Did video kill the radio? Nicolas Philibert uncovers the mystery of the medium in his warmly human documentary La Maison de la Radio.
The Last Of The Unjust / Le Dernier Des Injustes (2013)
★★★★☆
If this is a man. Claude Lanzmann’s The Last Of The Unjust recuts unused Shoah interviews to reveal the controversial figure of Benjamin Murmelstein – Europe’s last Jewish Elder.
Erebus: Into The Unknown (2014)
★★★☆☆
A dramatic reconstruction of New Zealand’s worst air disaster, Charlotte Purdy’s Erebus: Into The Unknown loses itself in the snows of Antarctica.
The Circle / Der Kreis (2014)
★★★★☆
Going back to the future through interviews with Switzerland’s first gay married couple, Stefan Haupt’s half-documentary The Circle reveals a postwar openness ahead of its time.
The Great Museum / Das große Museum (2014)
★★★★☆
A fascinating glimpse of the goings-on at one of the grandes dames of Europe’s museum scene, The Great Museum offers a compelling portrait of Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum.
The Green Prince (2014)
★★★☆☆
A fascinating tale of friendship and betrayal, Nadav Schulman’s documentary The Green Prince reminds us of the importance of placing ethics over politics.
School of Babel/La Cour de Babel (2014)
★★★★☆
French director Julie Bertuccelli’s classroom documentary School of Babel examines twenty-four foreign teenagers’ struggles as they adapt to a new life, culture and language in France.
Hockney (2014)
★★★★★
Unseen footage from David Hockney’s personal video library and revealing interviews make this the definitive biography of Britain’s most influential living artist.
Concerning Violence (2014)
★★★★☆
A visual poem on the sinister violence of colonisation, Göran Olsson’s Concerning Violence appeals for a new kind of future for Africa.