Tagged London Film Festival

At first glance, a hospital seems like an odd place to set an emotional drama. The clinical atmosphere lies in stark contrast to what might be expected of a multi-part drama about family and romantic...

Moonlight is a strange mixture of the old and the new, offering plenty that we’ve seen before while pushing boundaries that too often remain rigid in mainstream films. Director Barry Jenkins begins in the...

The Giant is an imaginative "human interest" story, something expected to feature in a local newscast's warm and fuzzy "and finally..." section. It is also a well-trodden - and sweetly simple - underdog...

Documentary director Stephen Kijak is clearly fascinated by band and "visual kei" pioneers X Japan and, although informative, the opening segment of We Are X teeters on the edge of pandering to founder Yoshiki...

London Town is a charming - if slightly implausible - tale of the capital and its undercurrents in 1979. It's also about diligent teenager Shay (Huttlestone) letting loose at just the time when more...

Trolls. Is. So. Colourful. In theory, this sounded like its only virtue, seeming like a misjudged cash-grabbing exercise with a passé '90s toy. Happily, however, Trolls subverts expectations with an...

Queen of Katwe is an emotional and inspirational film, sprinkled with Disney magic, although the true story does most of the heartrending speaking for itself. Phiona (newcomer Nalwanga) sells maize in...

Dancer is Sergei Polunin, the tattooed 'bad boy of ballet'. Aged just 23 and at the height of his powers, he sensationally quit his role as Principal with the Royal Ballet - the pinnacle of a usual career....

Both frothy and melancholy, The Bacchus Lady dives into its unexpected tale of one of South Korea’s infamous "Bacchus ladies" who witnesses a stabbing at her STI clinic and takes the perpetrator’s son...

Norwegian teenager Dag is a bit of a loner. He keeps himself to himself and helps his dad at work whenever he can. He’s also a firestarter, a twisted firestarter. Shunned by kids his own age and...

Lupe Under the Sun had the potential to be promising. It examines the life of a Mexican migrant living in California, eking out a meager existence as a fruit-picker. The film could have provided a searing...

The press notes for Alex Taylor's feature debut, Spaceship, advise you to expect a Harmony Korine film set in Surrey. Going in with an aversion to Korine's desperately controversial style of cinema therefore...

Robert Frank’s photographs of mid-century America were hated when he first presented them in book form. Candid, grainy, and refusing to shy away from social problems that people were facing, the general...

Hermia & Helena is rather frustrating. Beginning friskily - and a little quirkily - the scene is set when Camila (Agustina Muñoz) takes over Carmen’s (María Villar) artist’s residency in New York,...

Down Under places its feet firmly in the realm of truth from the outset, kicking off with sobering footage of the Cronulla race riots in 2006 - before pivoting into an absurd and farcical tale of street...