Reviews

Ritesh Batra excels at slow-burn romance and proves this once again in Photograph. Returning to his native Mumbai after several English-language projects, his latest film draws on the foundation of his 2013...

This Canadian documentary stems from work that began in 2009, when world environment experts began investigating whether the Earth had left the Holocene epoch and entered the Anthropocene, where humans shaped...

“He said I’m not fat,” says Verida to her horrified friend in Flesh Out. The man who has insulted her so much is her fiancé, for whom the young Verida is trying to gain as much weight as possible...

For a film set in motion by a death, Dafne bursts with life. The titular heroine (Carolina Raspanti) suddenly loses her mother in the film’s opening minutes – the accident is never fully explained, but...

The recruitment of white Europeans to the cause of ISIS is a topic which keeps coming up in films. Prolific French director André Téchiné is the latest to add to this list with his newest film, Farewell to...

When a film opens with its lead announcing in voiceover that the summer will never end, the beast of cliche rears its deadly horns. Sho Miyake’s decision to have wayward slacker Boku (Tasuku Emoto) declare...

Chiwetel Ejiofor’s acting career features many projects in which he explores African stories and identities across both the continent and the diaspora. Often, he does so under white and western directors,...

Hormigas – or El despertar de las hormigas (The Awakening of the Ants) – is a quietly emancipatory film from Costa Rican writer-director Antonella Sudasassi Furniss, following the daily existence of her...

School can be a hostile environment – particularly for those who don’t quite fit in. A Colony centers around Mylia (Émilie Bierre), whose entry into high school marks the end of childhood and the...

With a young teen’s understanding of sex, corruption and public administration, The Shadow Play is a captivating display of bold, shambolic filmmaking. Lou Ye’s conspiracy thriller tangles its wicked web...

Sometimes, a film entrances so entirely that its plot matters little. This is the case with Turkish drama A Tale of Three Sisters (Kız Kardeşler), which follows its three headstrong heroines as each return...

Cold winds sweep the icy Canadian landscape in Denis Côté's newest film. Ghost Town Anthology borrows its title from the name given to abandoned rural small towns: as people – in particular the younger...

Documentaries are meant to show facts objectively, but when the narrative style loses personal accounts in its passivity viewer engagement is tested, if not abandoned entirely. Kameni Govornici (The Stone...

Agnieszka Holland’s account of the man who exposed Stalin’s Ukrainian famine is a straightforward account whose tone occasionally jars with genre touches – these dynamic choices would work better if...

Gentrification is the enemy in Bait, Mark Jenkin’s black and white drama set on Cornwall’s fishing coast and the UK’s only entry to the Berlinale’s Forum programme this year. The philosophical and...