★★★☆☆ Teenage rebellion is a well-documented phenomenon and one that plays particularly well on film, where bright, sexy images can be used to punctuate the sound of tutting adults. Kaspar Munk’s Danish offering You & Me Forever (2012) fits neatly into this sub-genre, obeying most of the conventions that we Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Robyn Davidson’s nine-month solo trek across the outback is a true-life legend in her native Australia, so its surprising that it only now finds a first cinematic transfer in Tracks (2013), a handsome adaptation by John Curran starring a terrific Mia Wasikowska. Davidson – then 27 years old – Continue Reading
★★★★☆ A photographer for broadsheet paper The Observer since 1949, Jane Bown spent the better part of sixty years visually capturing and chronicling an expansive handful of the world’s most distinctive and distinguished icons; a perfectionist whose unassuming approach is synonymous with an unobtrusive but penetrating approach to portraiture. The Continue Reading
★★☆☆☆ Not to be confused with Steven Soderbergh’s comic caper of the same name starring a moustachioed Matt Damon, Julien Leclercq’s The Informant (2013) is a thriller based on an autobiographical novel by Marc Fievet. In this instance, it’s a title that seems a little less unique than the French Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Despite, or perhaps due to, the ever-present spectre of funding cuts and the commonly espoused notion that our national cinema’s global influence is on the wane, Britain is currently producing some exceptional filmmaking talent. Alongside the box office and awards success of the McQueens and the Nolans, our green Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ In 2011, Bosnian director Danis Tanović read a story in a newspaper about the touching travails of an impoverished Roma family before later taking it upon himself to tell their story. Three years later, his neorealist drama An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker (2013) arrives in Continue Reading
★★☆☆☆ Selected as part of the Directors’ Fortnight strand at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, Basil da Cunha’s feature debut After the Night (2013) paints an initially intriguing picture of nocturnal life in Lisbon’s crime-ridden suburbs, but ultimately fails to match its style with the substance needed to genuinely grip. Continue Reading