Birds of Passage (2018)
★★★★☆
In Birds of Passage, directed by Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra, the violent birth of Colombia’s drug trade destroys a unique traditional culture.
features
Happy as Lazzaro (2018) (Lazzaro felice)
★★★★☆
Happy as Lazzaro by Alice Rohrwacher is a magical-realist fable that features types of exploitation.
Out of Blue (2018)
★★☆☆☆
Out of Blue by Carol Morley, the director of Dreams of a Life, is a metaphysical neo-noir, a Schrödinger’s cat of a film.
Us (2019)
Review to follow.
★★★★☆
Us is Jordan Peele’s truly scary, more-than horror, state-of-the-nation follow-up to his acclaimed Get Out.
What They Had (2018)
★★★☆☆
Writer and director Elizabeth Chomko’s drama What They Had centres around that familiar concept of a crisis bringing a family together and drawing them closer to each other.
If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
Destroyer (2018)
★★★☆☆
Nicole Kidman plays startlingly against type in Karyn Kusama’s LA noir Destroyer.
Sorry to Bother You (2018)
★★★☆☆
Sorry to Bother You, the stunningly accomplished debut feature film by rapper Boots Riley, is a satirical morality tale about workplace culture, black exploitation and rampant capitalism.
3 Days in Quiberon (2018)
★★★★☆
3 Days in Quiberon by Emily Atef is a compelling slice of a few days in the life of actress Romy Schneider as she gives her last interview.
Widows (2018)
★★★★☆
Steve McQueen’s Widows is a hugely entertaining, violent, female-centred heist thriller that starts with a bang and never lets up thanks to co-screenwriter Gone Girl’s Gillian Lynn’s reimagination of Lynda LaPlante’s 1983 TV series.
BFI LFF Review: Crystal Swan (2018)
★★★★☆
The female-centric team of director Darya Zhuk, co-screenwriter Helga Landauer and cinematographer Carolina Costa give Alina Nasibullina a Madonna-esque starring role in post-Soviet black comedy Crystal Swan (Khrustal).
Faces Places (Visages Villages) 2017
★★★★☆
Legendary filmmaker Agnes Varda teams up with photographer JR in a charming creative road trip around France that celebrates the extraordinariness of ordinary people and the power of the imagination.
Wajib (2017)
★★★★☆
Wajib translates as ‘duty’ and Annemarie Jacir’s film focuses on a beautifully observed father-son relationship as they take a road trip around Nazareth amid the confines of being an Arab in Israel.
Leave No Trace (2018)
★★★★☆
Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace is a sympathetic, realistic character study of a father and daughter trying to adapt to society after being off grid in a US wilderness.