The Kingmaker (2019)
★★★★☆
The Kingmaker, Lauren Greenfield’s revealing documentary about Imelda Marcos, the former First Lady of the Philippines, is a fascinating and horrifying must-see.
Europe
Aquarela (2018)
★★★★☆
Aquarela, Victor Kossakovsky’s unforgettable, visionary documentary, immerses you in water in all its forms.
Ordinary Love (2019)
★★★★☆
Owen McCafferty’s sensitive and beautifully observed drama Ordinary Love, starring Lesley Manville and Liam Neeson, is subtly directed by Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn (Good Vibrations).
Atlantics (2019)
★★★★☆
Atlantic (Atlantique) is Mati Diop’s dreamlike feature debut focusing on the women left behind when Senegalese migrant workers take to the seas.
The Two Popes (2019)
★★★★☆
The Two Popes by Fernando Mereilles, starring Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, is a sparklingly written, joyfully acted, behind-the-scenes imagining of historic events made personal.
La Belle Époque (2019)
★★★★☆
La Belle Époque by Nicolas Bedos has sublime performances from its central characters that combine with a clever, witty, seamless screenplay to create an unashamedly super-enjoyable film.
I Lost My Body (2019)
★★★★★
I Lost My Body by Jérémy Clapin is a dreamlike, beautiful, unbearably sad and tender animation.
London Palestine Film Festival: It Must Be Heaven (2019)
★★★★☆
It Must Be Heaven continues Elia Suleiman’s deadpan global quest for recognition of Palestinian identity and homeland.
Sorry We Missed You (2019)
★★★★☆
Sorry We Missed you is a coruscating anti-capitalist manifesto from veteran politically engaged filmmaker Ken Loach and his longtime collaborator and screenwriter Paul Laverty.
BFI LFF 2019: Festival briefs
★★★★☆
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BFI LFF 2019: The Four Ages of Woman
★★★★☆
Four films at the BFI London Film Festival paint a thought-provoking picture of British women not ‘having it all’ from teenage. coming of age, adulthood to middle age.
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.
By the Grace of God (2019)
★★★★☆
Based on recent real-life events, in By the Grace of God François Ozon empathetically opens up a French scandal of child abuse in the Catholic Church going back over 20 years.
BFI LFF 2019: Fanny Lye Deliver’d (2019)
★★★★☆
Fanny Lye Deliver’d by Thomas Clay is a provocative, transgressive story of political, religious and sexual liberation in Puritan times showcasing a powerful performance by Maxine Peake.