Close (2022)
★★★★☆
Close by Lukas Dhont (Girl) is a heartbreaking film of two boys’ friendship.
Netherlands
Monos (2019)
★★★★★
Monos by Alejandro Landes, set among volatile, trainee teenage guerillas in Latin America, is quite simply of this year’s best and most disturbing films.
BFI LFF 2019: COMPETITION WINNERS
★★★★☆
BFI LFF 2019: COMPETITION WINNERS
BFI LFF 2019: Monos (2019)
★★★★★
Monos by Alejandro Landes (Porfirio), set among volatile, trainee teenage guerillas in Latin America, is quite simply one of this year’s best and most disturbing films.
Dirty God (2019)
★★★★☆
Dirty God is the personal, powerful story of an acid-attack victim played by Vicky Knight, directed by Sacha Polak.
Donbass (2018)
★★★★★
In Donbass Sergei Loznitsa’s anger at the war in eastern Ukraine pours out like red-hot lava in 13 episodes of a vicious cycle of dark comedy, absurdity, brutality and horror.
Girl (2018)
★★★★☆
Trans-themed Girl is an exceptional, moving debut by director Lukas Dhont
BFI LFF Review: Holiday (2018)
★★★★☆
Holiday is a beautifully brutal first feature from Isabella Eklöf about a petty drug lord’s girlfriend who is in for a holiday she’ll never forget in a vicious, powerful and fresh look at the gangster genre.
Zama (2017)
★★★★☆
In Lucrecia Martel’s hallucinatory, dreamlike, absurdist Zama, Spanish colonialists take on South America and lose.
The Wound (2017)
★★★★☆
The Wound (Inxeba) by John Trengove stars Nakhane Touré in a tense drama of gay male sexuality brought into focus by the traditional Xhosa circumcision rite of passage.
A Gentle Creature (2017)
★★★★☆
Savage satire by Sergei Loznitsa in A Gentle Creature eviscerates contemporary Russia.
Brimstone (2016)
★★★★☆
Brimstone is an almost unbearably violent take on the Western with a strong female character at its centre.
A Good Day To Die – Hoka Hey (2016)
★★★☆☆
In the fascinating documentary A Good Day To Die, Hoka Hey, Harold Monfils examines what drives award-winning photojournalist Jason Howe to risk his life in war zones.
Festival Review: Inside The Chinese Closet (2015)
★★★☆☆
With fake marriage markets and illegal babies, Sophia Luvara’s intimate documentary Inside The Chinese Closet reveals gay men and women shouldering their parents’ burden.