White God / Fehér isten (2014)
★★★★☆
Fierce and unflinchingly brutal, Kornél Mundruczó’s White God is an unsettling Hungarian allegory brimming with passion, imagination and socio-political resonance.
★★★★☆
Fierce and unflinchingly brutal, Kornél Mundruczó’s White God is an unsettling Hungarian allegory brimming with passion, imagination and socio-political resonance.
★★★☆☆
Sensitive low-budget British indie Hinterland follows two childhood friends getting to know each other again on a weekend road trip to Cornwall.
★★★★☆
Evoking Lynch, Polanski and Buñuel, The Duke of Burgundy is a boldly unique film from an exciting British filmmaker; it’s quite mad, quite funny, and quite brilliant.
★★★★☆
With a delicate, mesmerising performance from Rinko Kikuchi, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter is a darkly comic tale of misadventure – tragic, odd and uplifting.
★★☆☆☆
Uncompromising in its running time, Sergei Loznitsa’s sedate shooting style renders this potentially remarkable account of civil unrest quite the opposite.
★★★★☆
The glorious story of one woman’s emancipation, Anna Muylaert’s The Second Mother is a hilarious and quietly devastating parable of modern Brazil.
★★★☆☆
The portrait of a lost generation, Natalya Kudryashova’s Pioneer Heroes unpicks the disappointment of not living up to those childhood Octoberist dreams.
★★★☆☆
The portrait of a teenage mentally handicapped girl in the first throes of sex, Stina Werenfels’ Dora Or The Sexual Neuroses Of Our Parents comes unhinged.
★★★★☆
Pieced together out of archive footage, interviews and diaries, Liz Garbus’ What Happened, Miss Simone? makes a soul-stirring melody out of the blues.
★★★☆☆
More an existential dilemma than a corruption thriller, Tudor Giurgiu’s Why Me? is an important but longwinded tribute to the man who fought the law.
★★★☆☆
Charting Michael Glatze’s path from gay poster-boy to Christian pastor, Justin Kelly’s I Am Michael is a confused, emotionless journey back into the closet.
★★★☆☆
A portrait of life for gay and lesbian youth in Tulsa, Jannik Splidsboel’s Misfits explores homophobia and identity in the Bible Belt.
★★★☆☆
A beautifully monochromatic look at LGBT life in Kenya, the NEST Collective’s Stories Of Our Lives is an important history of fear.
★★★★☆
A stunning portrait of life in the trenches during the Great War, Ermanno Olmi’s Torneranno i prati is a handsome tribute to loneliness and fear.