★★★☆☆ The always interesting Karel Roden is the MVP in Julius Ševčík’s A Prominent Patient, playing Czechoslovakian diplomat Jan Masaryk in this handsomely mounted Czech answer to a certain Oscar-winning Gary Oldman drama. This divergence comes in the very crux […]
The London Short Film Festival returned to the capital this month with another cornucopia of new and beloved shorts from around the world. Taking place from 12 – 21 January it gave UK audiences a chance to catch up with […]
★★☆☆☆ The Barden Bellas return to the spotlight in their third outing, an uneven European tour that wraps a nice bow around the group’s acca-xploits, but lacks what made the original special. They never expected to get this far. They […]
Tallinn’s Black Nights Film Festival returned to the Estonian capital for its 21st instalment from 17 November – 3 December. Unlike some other A-list European festivals, the chilly darkness provides the perfect excuse to settle in and enjoy a wealth […]
The Made in Prague Film Festival (10-19 November) is back in London over the next two weekends. Programmed by the Czech Cultural Centre, new films will be accompanied by the first ever UK retrospective of seminal Czech New Wave filmmaker […]
★★★★☆ Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos follows up 2015’s The Lobster with his second English-language feature. Starring Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman, The Killing of a Sacred Deer is another dark comedy about the awful things we do to ourselves and […]
★★★☆☆ In select UK cinemas this week, Italian director Federica Di Giacomo eschews genre sensationalism for her Palermo-set exorcism documentary Deliver Us (Liberami), which is far more interested in its human subjects than it is in the demonic.Of course, the very […]
★★★★☆ Beginning as a routine meander into the woods in search of birds, The Ornithologist becomes an unsettling and subversive pilgrimage taking in the Camino de Santiago, a variety of bizarre individuals and a mystifying destination of self-discovery and rebirth.Combining […]
★★★☆☆ There’s little riper for a heartstring-plucking documentary than the life of a beloved star cut tragically short. In British filmmaker Nick Broomfield’s Whitney ‘Can I Be Me’, he paints a poignant picture but struggles to get to the heart […]
★★★★☆ Czech master filmmaker Karel Zeman draws liberally from literary and cinematic history to create his sumptuous and whimsical fantasy adventure The Fabulous Baron Munchausen, made with his signature flair. The film is now available once again thanks to Second […]
★★☆☆☆ In Ian Dunlop’s biography of Louis XIV he describes the Sun King’s death, saying that he “yielded up his soul without any effort, like a candle going out.” Slow cinema maestro Albert Serra clearly didn’t take to that notion […]
The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival returned for its 52nd year from 30 June-8 July. The beautiful spa town on the edge of the Slavkov forest in Western Bohemia played host to A-list stars and directors from around the world.As […]
