From Afar (2015)
★★★★☆
Lorenzo Vigas’s From Afar (Desda Allá) is a mesmerisingly elliptical, tense psychological study of a dark relationship.
★★★★
Adult Life Skills (2016)
★★★★☆
Rachel Tunnard’s debut feature Adult Life Skills is a quirky, witty and moving film about grief and identity.
Remainder (2015)
★★★★☆
What if you couldn’t remember your past and you tried to recreate it? Omar Fast’s visually stunning debut Remainder is a compulsively mind-bending puzzle.
Other People (2016)
★★★★☆
A semi-autobiographical story of comedy in the heart of tragedy, Chris Kelly’s Other People sees both good things and bad happen to us all.
Goat (2015)
★★★★☆
Penned by David Gordon Green and with a cameo performance from James Franco, Andrew Neel’s hazing drama Goat has impeccable indie credentials.
Love & Friendship (2016)
★★★★☆
A witty adaptation of Jane Austen’s Lady Susan, Whit Stillman’s Love & Friendship is a sassy parody of Regency manners.
Chicken (2016)
★★★★☆
A teen maelstrom of romance, secrets and family in the Essex countryside, Joe Stephenson’s Chicken is a moving portrait of a breaking idyll.
Cannes Film Festival: The Student (2016)
★★★★☆
Bringing Christian fundamentalism to the playground, Kirill Serebrennikov’s The Student satirises the conservatism of Russian institutions.
Son Of Saul (2015)
★★★★☆
Depicting the grim realities of life at the frontline of an extermination camp, Son of Saul is an extraordinary debut from director László Nemes.
Dheepan (2015)
★★★★☆
With an extraordinary central performance, Jacques Audiard’s Dheepan offers a searing portrait of Europe as seen by the dispossessed.
Eddie The Eagle (2016)
★★★★☆
A gentle portrait of the British ski jumper determined to win, Dexter Fletcher’s Eddie The Eagle is a funny, feel-good and well-made British film.
Marguerite (2015)
★★★★☆
A delicious update of the Emperor’s new clothes parable, Xavier Giannoli’s Marguerite exposes the well-meaning flattery of the have-nots.
Anomalisa (2015)
★★★★☆
A story of depression, alienation and looking for love where the human characters are played by puppets, Charlie Kaufman’s Anomalisa is unsettling and haunting.
Festival Review: Letters From War (2016)
★★★★☆
A black and white correspondence between an army medic and his new wife, Ivo Ferreira’s Letters Of War is a hauntingly beautiful portrait of war.