Cannes Film Festival 2025: Opening Film Tuesday 13 May: Partir Un Jour (2025) (Leave One Day)
★★★★☆
Cannes 2025: Opening Film 13 May 2025,
★★★
Four Mothers (2024)
★★★☆☆
Loosely based on the gentle, charming Italian 2008 film Mid-August Lunch, a national holiday when cities are deserted, Four Mothers, directed by Darren Thornton, opens out into a broader Irish take on getting old and being gay.
BFI Flare: The Pleasure is Mine (2024) (El Placer es Mío)
★★★☆☆
Young bisexual Antonio drifts through life lying, stealing, and using people while feeling incapable of love in writer-director Sacha Amaral’s Buenos Aires-set character study The Pleasure Is Mine.
BFI Flare: We Are Faheem & Karun (2024)
★★★★☆
Near the Pakistan border, in Kashmir a young security guard from Kerala forms a meaningful bond with a local man amidst political unrest in the groundbreaking drama We Are Faheem & Karun.
BFI Flare: Departures (2025)
★★★☆☆
Benji is left broken after the end of his relationship with Jake. In flashback we’re taken through Benji’s difficult journey with Jake in the painful and funny Departures.
Misericordia (2024) (Miséricorde)
★★★☆☆
Misericordia by Alain Guiraudie is an entertaining and disturbing mixture of sex and death.
The Stimming Pool (2024)
★★★☆☆
April is Autism Acceptance Month and Peckhamplex has a special screening of The Stimming Pool, made by The Neurocultures Collective.
When Autumn Falls (2024) Quand vient l’automne
★★★★☆
When Autumn Falls by François Ozon is a beguiling mixture of genres, suspense, love and beauty.
Berlinale: The Message (El Mensaje) (2025)
★★★☆☆
The Message is a beguiling, opaque film in Competition at the Berlinale.
Oscars FYC: From Ground Zero (2024)
★★★☆☆
Oscars 2025: From Ground Zero compiled by Rashid Masharawi is a compilation of short films showing everyday life in a destroyed Gaza.
The Convert (2024)
★★★☆☆
The Convert by Maori director Lee Tamahori, angry as his country is colonised by the British, set in 1834.
Rome 2024: Eternal Visionary (2024) (Eterno Visionario)
★★★☆☆
In Eternal Visionary director Michele Placido’s biopic takes us through the life of one of the 20th century’s most influential writers, Luigi Pirandello.
The Crime is Mine (2023) (Mon Crime)
★★★★☆
The Crime is Mine directed by François Ozon is a fast-moving comedy wolf in sheep’s clothing about gay rights and women’s equality, starring Isabelle Huppert.
BFI LFF 2024: Mother Vera (2024)
★★★☆☆
Mother Vera is an award-winning documentary by Cécile Embleton and Alys Tomlinson that enthrallingly reveals the life of a nun in Belarusia both pre- and post-convent.