My Brother The Devil (2012)
★★★★☆
A London La Haine, Sally El-Hosaini’s mesmerising debut My Brother The Devil looks at brotherhood, homosexuality and turf wars in post-riot Hackney.
UK
Wild Bill (2011)
★★★☆☆
Set in Stratford’s badlands, Dexter Fletcher’s debut feature Wild Bill has Olympian dreams of turning a wayward father into a family hero. So very London 2012.
How To Re-establish A Vodka Empire (2012)
★★★☆☆
How To Re-establish A Vodka Empire is a creative look at Dan Edelstyn’s attempt to retrace his lost Ukrainian heritage and relaunch the family vodka brand.
A Man’s Story (2010)
★★★☆☆
Filmed over 12 years, Varon Bonicos’s A Man’s Story is more than a bio-doc on Ozwald Boateng, it’s a sharp look at the essence of the man.
The Woman In The Fifth (2011)
★★★☆☆
Filmed in French, English and Polish, Pawel Pawlikowski’s The Woman In The Fifth offers a uniquely European look at love, literature and lunacy.
The Nine Muses (2010)
★★★☆☆
Respected Afro-British director John Akomfrah’s haunting film The Nine Muses is an unusual, genre defying, literary based contemplation of migration, memory and the power of elegy.
The Deep Blue Sea (2011)
★★★★☆
With a career redefining performance from Rachel Weisz, Terence Davies’ The Deep Blue Sea is a tour de force of classic filmmaking and nostalgia.
Wuthering Heights (2011)
★★★☆☆
“Heathcliff, it’s me, Cathy come home,” Andrea Arnold drops the high drama of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights in return for an opulence of visual treats.
Weekend (2011)
★★★★☆
A Nottingham-set gay love story, Andrew Haigh’s Weekend is love in the real lane – tender, confusing and painful. It’s funny, but it ain’t no hom-com.
We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011)
★★★★★
With Tilda Swinton’s soul-splintering performance as the mother of a high-school psychopath, Lynne Ramsay’s We Need To Talk About Kevin is killing me. Softly.
Perfect Sense (2010)
★★★★☆
David Mackenzie’s Perfect Sense is a twist on both thriller and love story as a couple find each other while the world around them crumbles, sense by sense.
Island (2011)
★★★☆☆
Based on the novel by Jane Rogers, Elizabeth Mitchell and Brek Taylor’s debut Island throws hateful young Nikki into an enchanted isle of folklore and revenge.
Robinson In Ruins (2010)
★★★★☆
A symbiosis of fixed landscapes and illuminating narration, Patrick Keiller’s Robinson In Ruins is a bracing journey through the Oxfordshire countryside.