Festival Review: Tough Love / Härte (2015)
★★★☆☆
From pimp to karate teacher, Rosa von Praunheim’s Härte paints a portrait through documentary and drama of a life of violence after a childhood of abuse.
Berlinale
Festival Review: Out Of Nature / Mot Naturen (2014)
★★★☆☆
Putting an unhappy life under the microscope, Ole Giæver’s Out Of Nature is an acute but glum excursion into first world problems.
Festival Review: 600 Miles / 600 Millas (2015)
★★★☆☆
A tense tale of Mexican machismo as a young gun-runner hooks up with a US cop, Gabriel Ripstein’s 600 Miles shows the gangster genre from its sensitive side.
Festival Review: 45 Years (2015)
★★★★☆
With brilliant performances from Rampling and Courtenay, Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years is an intense observation of a lifetime of marriage unravelled in one week.
Festival Review: The Queen Of The Desert (2015)
★★☆☆☆
A bombastic wannabe epic about desert explorer Gertrude Bell, not even Kidman and Franco can save Werner Herzog’s The Queen Of The Desert.
Festival Review: Taxi Tehran (2015)
★★★★☆
Turning the camera upon himself for the third time, Jafar Panahi’s Taxi is a moving portrait of the politics of filming and the filming of politics.
Festival Review: Blue Blood / Sangue Azul (2015)
★★★☆☆
A mesmerising portrait of the loneliness of the beautiful, Lírio Ferreira’s Blue Blood is an enigmatic blend of circus, ballet and cinema.
Selma (2014)
★★★☆☆
A powerful dramatisation of Martin Luther King’s final battle, Ava DuVernay’s Selma is a moving account of the march on racism and the man behind the movement.
Festival Review: Nobody Wants The Night / Nadie Quiere La Noche Aie (2015)
★★★☆☆
Shifting the story from polar explorer Peary to his wife, Isabel Coixet’sNobody Wants The Night offers a distinctly female slant on colonisation.
La Maison De La Radio (2013)
★★★★☆
Did video kill the radio? Nicolas Philibert uncovers the mystery of the medium in his warmly human documentary La Maison de la Radio.
The Circle / Der Kreis (2014)
★★★★☆
Going back to the future through interviews with Switzerland’s first gay married couple, Stefan Haupt’s half-documentary The Circle reveals a postwar openness ahead of its time.
The Way He Looks / Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho (2014)
★★★☆☆
A Brazilian tale of blind love, Daniel Ribeiro’s The Way He Looks is a lyrical mood piece of adolescent self-discovery but short on feeling.
London Film Festival 2014: Love Is Strange
Love Is Strange by Mark Wilshin Following his New York story of impossible love Keep The Lights On, Ira Sachs returns with another devastating…
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London Film Festival 2014: If You Don’t I Will / Arrête Ou Je Continue
If You Don’t I Will by Mark Wilshin With some heavyweight performances from French acting stalwarts Emmanuelle Devos and Mathieu Amalric and an electrifying…
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