★★★★☆
The Raindance Film Festival in London from 26 September to 7 October has 80 feature films, 99 short films, 22 music videos and 33 VR exhibits, including 31 world premieres, 28 international, 21 European and 81 UK premieres.
★★★★☆
Xavier Beauvois’ The Guardians Les Guardiennes is a beautiful period recreation of a time of change for women and society in rural France during the First World War.
★★★☆☆
Under the Tree by Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson is a mordant suburban black comedy that escalates an everyday situation into shocking Icelandic horror.
★★★★☆
Economically crumbling Paraguay after many years of patriarchal dictatorship is the setting for a subtle story of female self-discovery in Marcelo Martinessi’s The Heiresses.
★★★★☆
Xavier Beauvois’ The Racer and the Jailbird stars Adèle Exarchopoulos and Matthias Schoenaerts in an intense, high-speed love affair.
★★★★☆
Paul Schrader’s gripping First Reformed links spiritual and physical torment to the environmental threat to the future of the earth.
★★★★☆
Frederick Wiseman’s compelling and comprehensive documentary reveals the behind-the-scenes work of a monumental American institution, the New York Public Library.
★★★☆☆
The Endless is Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s excellent sci-fi horror fantasy UFO death-cult adventure.
★★★★☆
The Ciambra is an extraordinary first feature by Jonas Carpignano, a follow-up to Mediterraneo, that has ordinary people, non-professional actors, playing fictionalised versions of themselves in a reality-rooted drama.
★★★★☆
Hereditary is a sophisticated, updated horror movie by Ari Aster that showcases Toni Collette as her family falls apart.
★★★★☆
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.
★★★☆☆
François Ozon is on quirky erotic form in L’Amant Double, a mystery of psychoanalysis and seduction.
★★★☆☆
Arnaud Desplechin’s Ismaël’s Ghosts is an abstract, at times melodramatic, interweaving of nightmare, filmmaking, fiction and reality.
★★★★☆
Sundance London 2018: 31 May-3 June