Festival Review: What Happened, Miss Simone (2015)
★★★★☆
Pieced together out of archive footage, interviews and diaries, Liz Garbus’ What Happened, Miss Simone? makes a soul-stirring melody out of the blues.
★★★★☆
Pieced together out of archive footage, interviews and diaries, Liz Garbus’ What Happened, Miss Simone? makes a soul-stirring melody out of the blues.
★★★☆☆
More an existential dilemma than a corruption thriller, Tudor Giurgiu’s Why Me? is an important but longwinded tribute to the man who fought the law.
★★★☆☆
Charting Michael Glatze’s path from gay poster-boy to Christian pastor, Justin Kelly’s I Am Michael is a confused, emotionless journey back into the closet.
★★★☆☆
A portrait of life for gay and lesbian youth in Tulsa, Jannik Splidsboel’s Misfits explores homophobia and identity in the Bible Belt.
★★★☆☆
A beautifully monochromatic look at LGBT life in Kenya, the NEST Collective’s Stories Of Our Lives is an important history of fear.
★★★★☆
A stunning portrait of life in the trenches during the Great War, Ermanno Olmi’s Torneranno i prati is a handsome tribute to loneliness and fear.
★★★☆☆
Despite a promising concept of heavenly screenwriters, Sabu’s Chasuke’s Journey ends in an occasionally visually arresting but hare-brained disappointment.
★★☆☆☆
A live action remake of Disney’s cartoon classic, Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella is saved by great performances from Cate Blanchett and Helena Bonham Carter.
★★★☆☆
An atmospheric evocation of life on the banks of the Saigon River, Dang Di Phan’s Big Father, Small Father And Other Stories is a gently haunting muddle.
★★☆☆☆
Despite all-singing performances from Katja Riemann and Barbara Sukowa, Margarethe von Trotta’s The Misplaced World still makes for a jarring thriller.
★★★★☆
With unique archive footage, Christian Braad Thomsen’s Fassbinder To Love Without Demands delivers an honest and intelligent portrait of the German director.
★★★★★
A poignant New York story of love in a dark time, Ira Sachs’ Love Is Strange makes for a fine romance of the most human kind.
★★★☆☆
Drugs and violent crime trigger a surprising religious conversion for a small-time gangster in London’s East End, in a story that reflects a changing urban society.
★★★☆☆
Israeli and Palestininan schoolchildren overcoming their prejudices as they are taught to ballroom dance together is movingly captured in a fly-on-the-wall documentary.