Festivals
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SXSW 2021: Our Father review
★★☆☆☆ In spite of two very game central performances by newcomers Baize Busan and Allison Torem, Bradley Grant Smith’s Our Father is the flattest of family drama-comedies.
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SXSW 2021: The Lost Sons review
★★☆☆☆ Though the twists and turns of an extraordinary story – a baby stolen at birth, mistaken identities, genealogical discoveries, a fifty-year quest for the truth – are compelling, Ursula Macfarlane’s The Lost Sons has the feel of a somewhat formulaic, made-for-TV documentary.
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SXSW 2021: Ludi review
★★★☆☆ Bound by a self-imposed obligation to send money to family back home in Haiti, caregiver Ludi works all the hours God sends in Floridian filmmaker Edson Jean’s debut Ludi.
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SXSW 2021: Luchadoras review
★★★★☆ In the opening moments of Paola Calvo and Patrick Jasim’s Luchadoras, female workers take a bumpy bus ride to factories situated on the outskirts of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.
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SXSW 2021: Kid Candidate review
★★★★☆ Jasmine Stodel’s Kid Candidate follows 24-year-old Hayden Pedigo from debut campaign no-hoper to improbable torchbearer for the disenfranchised youth and ignored, impoverished minorities of Amarillo, Texas.
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Glasgow 2021: City Hall review
★★★★★ “The concept of resilience is a powerful one.” Channelling the fortitude and resolve with which his beloved city of Boston recovered from the 2013 marathon bombing, Mayor Marty Walsh’s words echo a key tenet of Frederick Wiseman’s City Hall. One of many intangible pillars that provide the sturdy framework of this epic 270-minute documentary,…
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Glasgow 2021: Wildland review
★★★☆☆ Ostensibly a remake of David Michôd’s outstanding 2010 film Animal Kingdom, Jeanette Nordahl’s Wildland transposes the action of a Melbourne crime family’s nefarious enterprise to leafy Danish suburbia. Bringing both her experience as assistant director on the popular political series Borgen, as well as the show’s leading lady, Sidse Babett Knudsen, to her debut…
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Glasgow 2021: Sweetheart review
★★★☆☆ Whether you’re completely lost or simply taking the scenic route, coming-of-age stories tend to be just as much about the journey as their destination. Though it may not stray too far off a well-beaten track, Marley Morrison’s feature debut Sweetheart is a sure-fire crowd pleaser that showcases a young filmmaker and cast with real…
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Glasgow 2021: Gagarine review
★★★★☆ In the opening moments of Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh’s Gagarine, news footage from the early 1960s shows Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin opening an Ivry-sur-Seine housing estate, dedicated in his honour. Wide-eyed boys, chasing the stars, excitedly declare that one day they would love to follow in their hero’s floating footsteps. But could a…
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Glasgow 2021: Shorta review
★★★☆☆ Open a film with a close-up of a young black man screaming “I can’t breathe,” his neck under the knee of a policeman, and you better back it up with a social critique worthy and respectful of as shocking an image and incendiary a subject matter. Anders Ølholm and Frederik Louis Hviid’s Shorta (to…