Nobody’s Daughter Haewon (2013)
★★★☆☆
Like someone in love, Hong Sangsoo’s Nobody’s Daughter Haewon draws out the loneliness of youth as a pretty student negotiates family, love and relationships.
London Film Festival
Kelly + Victor (2013)
★★★☆☆
As two lovers meet and start an intense, doomed sexual relationship, Kieran Evans’ Kelly + Victor offers a charged portrait of two worlds colliding.
Wadjda (2012)
★★★★☆
In Haifaa Al-Mansour’s Wadjda, an enterprising Saudi schoolgirl enters her school’s Koran recitation competition to raise money to buy a forbidden bicycle.
Les Invisibles (2012)
★★★★☆
Putting the stories of nine venerable gay men and women under the spotlight, Sébastien Lifshitz’s Les Invisibles pays homage to love, self-fulfilment and revolution.
Play (2011)
★★★★☆
Through teen scams, Native American song and an ownerless cradle, Ruben Östlund’s Play offers a long hard look at social discomfort at play.
The Wall / Die Wand (2012)
★★★★☆
An exploration of self beyond the lives of others, Julian Pölsler’s The Wall puts femininity and humanity on show in a glass cage.
The Comedian (2012)
★★★☆☆
A modern take on the clown’s tragedy, Tom Shkolnik’s The Comedian is short on laughs but strong on introspection.
White Elephant / Elefante Blanco (2012)
★★★☆☆
A homage to the men of the cloth fighting poverty in Argentina, Pablo Trapero’s White Elephant explores the moral murk and courage of the missionary position.
Thursday Till Sunday / De Jueves A Domingo (2012)
★★★☆☆
Dominga Sotomayor’s Chilean road movie Thursday Till Sunday is a beguiling and tender children’s-eye-view of a changing adult world.
In The House / Dans La Maison (2012)
★★★★☆
Of schoolboy crushes and French assignments, François Ozon’s labyrinthine In The House is an intricate maze of fiction and reality worth getting lost in.
Reality (2012)
★★★★☆
Matteo Garrone’s Reality is a well thought-out satire on fame and the pursuit of celebrity in Berlusconi’s reality TV-obsessed Italy.
Robot & Frank (2012)
★★★★☆
An unlikely odd-couple relationship between man and robot, Robot & Frank poignantly contrasts human memory and ageing with its computerised counterparts.
Lore (2012)
★★★★☆
Set in 1945 in a Germany coming to terms with defeat, Cate Shortland’s Lore is an intimate and evocative portrait of lost innocence.
Mea Maxima Culpa Silence In The House Of God (2012)
★★★★☆
Through the testimony of signing victims, Alex Gibney’s documentary Mea Maxima Culpa Silence In The House Of God lifts the lid on Church secrecy and child abuse.