Festivals
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FrightFest 2021: Offseason review
★★★★☆ Mickey Keating’s Offseason is an atmospheric, supremely confident horror show. The director conjures an oppressive air of creeping fear and dreamlike dread, that’s as much an ode to Southern Gothic melodrama as it is the traditions of folk horror. There’s the sense watching Keating’s sixth feature that he is on the road to greatness and…
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FrightFest 2021: Night Drive review
★★★★☆ In Night Drive (2021), a former tech bro turned Uber-style chauffeur picks up a young woman with a penchant for trouble. As a long evening unfolds and Russell (AJ Bowen) begins to question how far he’s willing to go, a surprising twist develops. Brad Baruh and Meghan Leon’s indie comedy boasts two excellent lead performances given…
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FrightFest 2021: Demonic review
★★★☆☆ Neill Blomkamp’s Demonic sees the South African director switch things up a little bit. His brand of urban socio-political sci-fi takes a back seat, as he dips his toe into the horror genre proper. The result intrigues as much as disappoints. Made during the early months of the global pandemic, with a $1.5 million budget and…
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FrightFest 2021: Programme highlights
Horror is back! While football never did manage to make it home, after a 2020 edition of Arrow Video FrightFest rolled out entirely online, 2021’s event returns for an in-cinema event at the Cineworld Empire Theatre, Leicester Square. Five days of world horror cinema awaits. The past 18 months have been hell for us all. And if…
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Irish Film London presents: The Irish for Hope series
Irish Film London, an organisation that champions Irish film and animation in the UK, will host a summer season of uplifting Irish films to encourage live audiences back to cinemas following Covid-19 closures. The Irish for Hope will present Irish stories imbued with hope for new beginnings, better tomorrows and the goodness that can be…
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Cannes 2021: Our picks of the festival
There’s never been a Cannes quite like this. Vaccine passports, saliva tests, face-masks: welcome to the Croisette in the time of Covid. Cannes has returned, following a year long deferral. Spike Lee is again head of the jury and some of the films are the same as Cannes 2020, but overall there is a startling…
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BFI Flare 2021: Festival highlights
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 divided its programme into three umbrella themes: hearts, minds, and bodies. These categories make for…
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SXSW 2021: Under the Volcano review
★★★★☆ Australian director Gracie Otto moves from theatre and film to the music industry for her latest project, again in the search for hidden treasure. With Under the Volcano she strikes gold once more.
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SXSW 2021: The Hunt for Planet B review
★★★★☆ Scheduled for launch at the end of October 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope will set the distant red star Trappist 1 – and its potentially habitable exoplanets – in its sights. Its objective? Peering into deepest space to answer one of mankind’s greatest unknowns.
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SXSW 2021: Bantú Mama review
★★★☆☆ Escaping Paris for a week’s rest and relaxation in the Dominican Republic, Emma (Clarisse Albrecht) says goodbye to pet parrot Coco in the opening moments of Bantú Mama.