The Kid With A Bike / Le Gamin Au Vélo (2011)
★★★★☆
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne return to heartbreaking form with The Kid With A Bike with a little boy lost looking for love with all the kinetic anxiety he can muster.
Once Upon A Time In Anatolia / Bir Zamanlar Anadolu’da (2011)
★★★★☆
An epic night-time police investigation, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Once Upon A Time In Anatolia exhumes an inconvenient truth from the soul’s darkest recesses.
How To Re-establish A Vodka Empire (2012)
★★★☆☆
How To Re-establish A Vodka Empire is a creative look at Dan Edelstyn’s attempt to retrace his lost Ukrainian heritage and relaunch the family vodka brand.
Trishna (2011)
★★★★☆
Reinventing Hardy’s Tess Of The d’Urbervilles in a colourful India in its own glorious revolution, Michael Winterbottom’s Trishna is a bitter fall from grace.
A Man’s Story (2010)
★★★☆☆
Filmed over 12 years, Varon Bonicos’s A Man’s Story is more than a bio-doc on Ozwald Boateng, it’s a sharp look at the essence of the man.
The Woman In The Fifth (2011)
★★★☆☆
Filmed in French, English and Polish, Pawel Pawlikowski’s The Woman In The Fifth offers a uniquely European look at love, literature and lunacy.
Michael (2011)
★★★★☆
With echoes of Michael Haneke, the Austrian master’s casting director Markus Schleinzer has us on a knife-edge with his paedophilia drama Michael.
Khodorkovsky (2011)
★★★☆☆
From oligarch to the Siberian gulag, Cyril Tuschi’s documentary Khodorkovsky shines a light on Russia’s murky politics and its most infamous dissident. Oh, those Russians.
Film Festival: The 62nd Berlin Film Festival – Berlinale 2012
Berlinale 2012 CAUTION: Here be spoilers After winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1977 for Padre Padrone and the Grand Prix du Jury…
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Hadewijch (2009)
★★★☆☆
A compelling insight into the mind of a Christian terrorist, Bruno Dumont’s Hadewijch is a hotbed of religious delusion and misplaced fervour.
Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)
★★★★☆
A sister, a cult member, an alias – Sean Durkin’s psychological thriller Martha Marcy May Marlene is an assured debut as gripping as it is haunting.
Patience (After Sebald) (2012)
★★★☆☆
Patience (After Sebald) sees Grant Gee’s richly-textured path meander through the Suffolk countryside and the work of the acclaimed Anglo-German writer.
The Nine Muses (2010)
★★★☆☆
Respected Afro-British director John Akomfrah’s haunting film The Nine Muses is an unusual, genre defying, literary based contemplation of migration, memory and the power of elegy.
Shame (2011)
★★★★★
Michael Fassbender is at his leg-tapping best in Steve McQueen’s Shame, a tale of lonely frustration, sexual addiction and grim redemption.