Tagged LFF 2017

The Boy Downstairs, although it may most comfortably sit within the rom-com genre, avoids the common tropes and clichés of many of the poorer (and multitudinous) romantic comedies. Diana (a quirky Zosia...

This film was originally reviewed on 10/10/2017 as part of London Film Festival. In the first seconds of Warwick Thornton’s outback Western Sweet Country a screaming brawl happens off screen, the camera...

This film was previously reviewed on 09/10/17 as part of London Film Festival. Premiering at Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes and winning British Film of the Year at the London Critics Circle Film Awards,...

This film was previously reviewed on 21/09/17 as part of London Film Festival. In Swahili, "makala" means "charcoal". Emmanuel Gras’s observational documentary follows Kabwita Kasongo as he journeys 50...

Wholly unrelenting and uncensored, Hungarian writer-director Arpad Sopsits’ Strangled (A Martfüi Rém, in its native translation) is a true crime neo-noir that rarely lets up. Strangled effectively...

The Boy Downstairs, although it may most comfortably sit within the rom-com genre, avoids the common tropes and clichés of many of the poorer (and multitudinous) romantic comedies. Diana (a quirky Zosia...

Journeyman is a film waiting ringside to deliver a heavy, gut-wrenching blow; it’s not a sucker punch – you know it’s coming from the film’s traditional structure and triumphant opening act – but...

Why isn't John Hawkes in more films? He is mesmerising here as hopeless, selfish, drunk ex-copper Mike Kendall, whose life fell apart 17 months ago – and who still hasn't managed to piece it back together...

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women ensures you’ll never look at Wonder Woman the same way again. Not only was she ahead of her time at her creation as a feminist icon in 1941, but the overtly sexualised...

It’s surprising that it took so long for 6 Days’ subject matter to receive the onscreen treatment, as it depicts the famous 1980 Iranian Embassy siege and the SAS’s response, seen as “an almost...

Funny Cow is literally Maxine Peake’s show, as she narrates her tough life – and the film – from a later point of success through a televised monologue. Her no-nonsense honesty is reminiscent of a...

Pablo Berger’s latest is the playful madcap comedy Abracadabra. The director doesn’t stay still for long at all. His previous features include the 2012 hit black-and-white silent film Blancanieves which...

Seriously, who doesn’t want to learn to dance on roller skates? Luckily for all you wannabe gliders, director Kate Hickey has put together this little number that follows some of the finest roller dancers in...

Given recent events, Angels Wear White couldn’t be more timely. Vivian Qu’s latest is an uncannily prescient depiction of the enormous cover-up of child sexual assault and the bravery it takes to be the...

As the title of a film, Carlos Marques-Marcet’s Anchor and Hope raises all sorts of bleak expectations of a film entering maudlin rom-com territory. Fortunately, it is just the name of the East London pub...