★★★★★ In Ali & Ava, Yorkshire-born director Clio Barnard’s fourth feature film, two lovers defy the aged, gendered, classed and racialised expectations of their families and communities. Ali (Adeel Akhtar) is a landlord with a gift for the gab and a tender care for his tenants.
Always hotly anticipated by London’s LGBTIQ+ communities, BFI Flare went fully online this year, 26 features and even more shorts finding new audiences for a glorious programme full of soul, provocation, warmth, wit and sex. Continuing a trend, the festival...
★★★☆☆ Adapting her semi-autobiographical novel How to Build a Girl for the screen, Caitlin Moran has created with co-writer John Niven and director Coky Giedroyc a funny and touching coming-of-age story that occasionally loses its way, just like its protagonist. Growing...
★★★★☆ In his follow-up to The Story of Film: An Odyssey, Mark Cousins takes us on a “new road movie through cinema”, a 14-hour virtual film school made up entirely of the all-too-often forgotten links: masterful films directed by women....
★★★★★ In his third feature, Levan Akin makes traditional Georgian dance a boldly cinematic affair, combining the disciplined physicality of a dance film with the lingering gazes of a slow-burning love story. A perfect double bill for Portrait of a...