1976 (2022)
★★★★☆
Chilean political thriller 1976 is an unbearably tense and involving debut from actor turned director Manuela Martelli, starring award-winning Aline Kuppenheim.
Thessaloniki Documentary Festival: The Laughing Boy (An Buachaill Geal Gháireach) (2022)
★★★★☆
An Buachaill Geal Gáireach (The Laughing Boy) is the extraordinary untold story of a song that resonated for freedom in Ireland and Greece.
Lanuna: A Yak in the Classroom (2019)
★★★★☆
Set in a remote village in the beautiful mountains of Bhutan, Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom is a charming, photogenic feature debut by writer/director Pawo Choyning Dorji.
I’m Fine (Thanks for Asking) (2021)
★★★★☆
US festival favourite I’m Fine (Thanks for Asking) is a touching, positive indie movie, female written and directed, made during Los Angeles’ lockdown (see the mask use) focusing on the struggles to be independent of a widowed mother who happens to be homeless, black and female – and beautiful.
Close (2022)
★★★★☆
Close by Lukas Dhont (Girl) is a heartbreaking film of two boys’ friendship.
Broker (2022)
★★★★☆
Broker by Hirokazu Koreeda, starring acclaimed actor Song Kang-ho and K-Pop star Lee Ji-eun, is a heartwarming tragi-comic Korean drama about families that form themselves by choice not birth.
Bafta Awards 2023
★★★★☆
Bafta Award Winners 2023
Berlinale 2023 Review: El Castillo (2023) (The Castle)
★★★☆☆
Berlinale presents San Sebastián award winner El Castillo (The Castle) a strangely moving mixture of documentary and fiction by Martin Benchimol.
EO (2022)
span style=”color:#D1A316″>★★★★☆
EO, veteran director Jerzy Skolimowski’s compelling, beautifully shot homage to Bresson’s classic, takes a donkey’s eye view of the vagaries of life.
Decision to Leave (2022)
★★★★☆
Cannes-award-winning unforgettable Decision to Leave directed with pyrotechnical flair by Park Chan-wook is a haunting Korean neo-noir and yet so much more.
Saint Omer (2022)
★★★★☆
Saint Omer by Alice Diop is a harrowing and haunting political drama about the complexities of being a Black woman and the pressures of motherhood, inspired by real events.
Holy Spider (Ankabut-e moqaddas) (2022)
★★★★☆
Holy Spider, angrily written and directed by Ali Abbasi (Border), is a grisly, reality-based story of violence against women in a patriarchal, theocratic society.
Peter von Kant (2022)
★★★☆☆
Peter von Kant is a gender-flipped re-imagining by François Ozon of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1972 classic power play of sexual obsession The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant.
Corsage (2022)
★★★★☆
A compelling woman-led re-imagining of the life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria in Corsage, directed by Marie Kreutzer and starring Vicky Krieps.