On the Divide – Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2022 Review Sophie Maxwell March 29, 2022 Reviews In the small city of McAllen, Texas, a human rights battle is waged in close quarters. On the Divide follows Denisse, Rey, and Mercedes, three people whose lives have been touched deeply by the politics of...
The Justice of Bunny King – Review Scott Wilson February 12, 2022 Reviews This film was previously reviewed in August 2021 as part of our EIFF coverage. "We’re trying to help you". That’s what Bunny King keeps getting told, while she tries to win back her kids after they are...
Stop-Zemlia – EIFF 2021 Review Scott Wilson August 25, 2021 Reviews Everything feels significant the first time it happens. That’s what makes high school such a momentous time, even if nothing particularly exciting is happening. Stop-Zemlia follows a class in the lead up to...
Mad God – EIFF 2021 Review Scott Wilson August 24, 2021 Reviews Stop-motion animation has taken Wallace and Gromit to the moon and given us the eternal love of Jack and Sally. Its limitations are only the imagination, able to create something impossible by any other means....
Pig – EIFF 2021 Review Scott Wilson August 20, 2021 Reviews Robin Feld is battered and bruised. His lone companion in the woods where he lives is a truffle-foraging pig, and she’s been kidnapped by assailants who left Robin bloody on the floor. Without pause – or a...
The Bright Side – EIFF 2021 Review Rafaela Sales Ross August 19, 2021 Reviews Night after night, Kate (Gemma-Leah Deveraux) grabs a cheap beer and walks up on stage at her local pub/comedy club. She shoots one self-deprecating joke after another, before heading to a shabby room in the...
Sisters With Transistors – Review Sophie Maxwell April 23, 2021 Reviews This film was previously reviewed in June 2020 as part of Sheffield Doc/Fest. Lisa Rovner explores women’s work in electronic music in her feature documentary debut Sisters With Transistors. The film is...
Todd Stephens, Udo Kier and Linda Evans on Swan Song Rafaela Sales Ross March 28, 2021 Features, Interview, One Off In the realm of great storylines, “A formerly flamboyant hairdresser takes a long walk across a small town to style a dead woman's hair” certainly hits the jackpot. Throw in two contrasting legends in the...
Our Father – SXSW 2021 Review Rafaela Sales Ross March 19, 2021 Reviews At the cusp of leaving her job and moving away to fulfil a long-time dream of going to college, Beta (Baize Busan) receives news her father died by suicide after battling an unnamed disease. Upon getting the...
Cusp – Sundance Film Festival 2021 Review Rafaela Sales Ross February 2, 2021 Reviews “There is no normal in teenage years” utters a young girl as the sun goes down, her friends carrying cans of beer and chatting from the top of old, beaten trucks. It is a fitting observation to set the...
Me and the Cult Leader – Sheffield Doc/Fest 2020 Review Sophie Maxwell June 27, 2020 Reviews In 1995, commuters in Tokyo were deliberately exposed to a deadly gas called sarin in an act of domestic terrorism. Twelve people were killed and over a thousand injured. Me and the Cult Leader: A Modern...
Sunset – Venice 2018 Review Tom Bond September 7, 2018 Reviews László Nemes’ previous film, Son of Saul, was a harrowing and visceral fever dream, dragging the viewer through the charnel house of a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. Much of its power came from...
Dopo La Guerra – Cannes 2017 Review Tom Bond May 23, 2017 Reviews Dopo La Guerra tells the half-true story of a group of Italian far-left political terrorists, whose amnesty to live in France was rescinded in 2002. Annarita Zambrano’s tense film combines thriller and...
Jeune Femme – Cannes 2017 Review Tom Bond May 23, 2017 Reviews Roaring down the trail blazed by the likes of Lena Dunham’s Girls, Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag and Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Child, Jeune Femme is the most memorable and entertaining film of the...
The Killing Of A Sacred Deer – Cannes 2017 Review Tom Bond May 22, 2017 Reviews If you ever get invited to a Cannes beach party, never play "Would You Rather… ?" with Yorgos Lanthimos. The Greek writer-director has a perverse mind quite unlike anyone else working today, with previous...