Cicada (2020)
★★★★☆
In Cicada by Matt Fifer and Kieran Mulcare, a twenty-something in New York finds love but his life is clouded by the memories of childhood abuse and the pain of not knowing how to deal with it.
Chris Drew
Herself (2020)
★★★★☆
After escaping an abusive marriage, a young Irish mother’s plan to self-build a home is fraught with complications in director Phyllida Lloyd’s empowering Herself.
The Man with the Answers (2020)
★★★☆☆
A burgeoning connection with a stranger may deeply affect the life of an ex-diving champion in writer/director Stelios Kammitsis’s charming but slight The Man with the Answers.
Supernova (2020)
★★★★☆
Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci are superb in Harry MCQueen’s Supernova, this intimate portrayal of a couple facing a challenging future with one of them suffering from early onset dementia.
Sound of Metal (2019)
★★★★☆
Sound of Metal by Darius Marder, starring Riz Ahmed, is the sensitively told and brilliantly acted story of every musician’s worst nightmare – going deaf.
Black Bear (2020) – ON DEMAND
★★★ώ☆
A creatively frustrated film director’s tumultuous visit to a young couple’s lake house may reignite her creative vision in writer/director Lawrence Michael Levine’s Black Bear.
Sequin in a Blue Room (2019) – on demand
★★★★☆
An Australian teen’s obsession with an anonymous sex app ventures into dangerous territory when he is invited into the Blue Room in Samuel Van Grinsven’s stylish gay thriller Sequin in a Blue Room.
BFI Flare: Jump, Darling (2020) – on demand
★★★☆☆
Following a break-up, a struggling drag queen visits his ailing grandmother in the country and finds himself staying as the pair support each other in various ways in writer/director Phil Connell’s Jump, Darling.
BFI Flare: Cowboys (2020) – on demand on Curzon Home Cinema on 7 May
★★★☆☆
In writer/director Anna Kerrigan’s Cowboys a father and his transgender son journey through the Montana mountain ranges escaping the boy’s mother, who is unable to accept his gender dysphoria.
BFI Flare: Sublet (2020) – on demand
★★★☆☆
In Eytan Fox’s Sublet a middle-aged American travel writer visiting Tel Aviv forms an unexpected connection with his young Israeli landlord and in the process learns new things about himself.
BFI Flare: Boy Meets Boy (2021) – on demand
★★★☆☆
After meeting high in a Berlin nightclub, Johannes and Harry casually drift around the city coming down and getting to know each other in Daniel Sanchez Lopez’s Boy Meets Boy
BFI Flare: My First Summer (2020) – on demand
★★★★☆
In My First Summer by Katie Found, in rural Australia a sheltered teenage girl suffers a devastating loss but is unexpectedly brought to life by a sudden special connection with a fellow teen.
The Exception (2019) – On demand
★★★★☆
Working relations between four women working at a Danish research facility escalate dangerously when death threats are received and suspicions start to turn within the team in Jesper W. Nielsen’s The Exception.
Carmilla (2020)
★★★☆☆
Based on Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1871 novella, Emily Harris’ film tells a coming-of-age story within a suspenseful, atmospheric gothic chamber piece.