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.
Germany
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.
Triangle of Sadness (2021)
★★★★☆
Triangle of Sadness, Ruben Ôstland’s second Palme d’or winner, is an uncompromising black contemporary satire.
The Collini Case (2019)
★★★☆☆
The Collini Case by Marco Kreuzpaintner is a slickly made German legal drama that hinges on postwar European history.
It Must Be Heaven (2019)
★★★★☆
It Must Be Heaven continues Elia Suleiman’s deadpan global quest for recognition of Palestinian identity and homeland.
Undine (2020) – on demand
★★★★☆
Undine by Christian Petzold is a strange, otherworldly, watery romance with unsettling depths.
BFI Flare: Boy Meets Boy (2021) – on demand
★★★☆☆
After meeting high in a Berlin nightclub, Johannes and Harry casually drift around the city coming down and getting to know each other in Daniel Sanchez Lopez’s Boy Meets Boy
Notturno (2020) – on demand
★★★★☆
Filmed over three years in war zones in Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria and Lebanon, Notturno (Nocturne) by Gianfranco Rosi is a documentary oddity.
Proxima (2019) – On demand
★★★★☆
The French female astronaut in woman-centred Proxima, directed by Anna Winocour, is torn apart by the conflict between needing the freedom to achieve and the pain of separation from her daughter.
Proxima (2019)
★★★★☆
The superbly focused French female astronaut in woman-centred Proxima directed by Anna Winocour is torn apart by the conflict between needing freedom to achieve and the pain of separation from her daughter.
System Crasher (2019) – ON DEMAND and Q&A
★★★★☆
Nora Fingscheidt’s System Crasher is explosive and riotous with tour de force performances.
The Perfect Candidate (2019) – ON DEMAND
★★★★☆
The Perfect Candidate by Haifaa Al-Mansour is a fascinating glimpse of women’s changing status in the patriarchal kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Aquarela (2018)
★★★★☆
Aquarela, Victor Kossakovsky’s unforgettable, visionary documentary, immerses you in water in all its forms.