Lucy Popescu

★★★★☆ Swedish writer-director Sanna Lenken’s notable debut My Skinny Sister (2015) about a young teenager’s eating disorder is a simple tale given added poignancy by powerful performances from the two leads. Katja (Amy Deasismont) is a promising young figure skater envied and admired by her younger sister Stella (Rebecka Josephson). Katja is beautiful, svelte and…

Continue

★★★★☆ Saeed Taji Farouky has carved out something of a reputation for directing and producing documentaries that are visually arresting and pack a punch. Tunnel Trade (2007), about Gaza’s illegal underground smuggling economy, was nominated for a Rory Peck Award, while The Runner (2013), about an activist and athlete from Western Sahara, garnered high praise…

Continue

★★★★☆ Cosima Spender’s fascinating documentary Palio (2015), released on DVD this week, is about the oldest horse race in the world, whose origins date from medieval times. The Palio is a ruthless bareback race around the Piazza del Campo, Siena’s main square. There are two a year, held in July and August and each race…

Continue

★★★★☆ Bruce Goodison’s impressive feature Leave to Remain (2013) confronts the issue of teenage asylum seekers struggling to adapt to life in London and dealing with past trauma as they wait for their permanent leave to remain. In Britain, unaccompanied minors are granted temporary asylum and are placed in foster homes or shelters. But when…

Continue

★★★★★ Fully deserving of its Oscar and Golden Globe award nominations earlier this year, Zaza Urushadze’s affecting drama Tangerines (2013) – in UK cinemas this week courtesy of Axiom Films – is a bittersweet portrait of cruelty and compassion in the midst of war. During the bloody conflict between Georgia and Abkhazia that erupted in…

Continue

★★★★☆ Sean McAllister’s award-winning film A Syrian Love Story (2015) is a searing documentary portrait of a family torn apart by dictatorship and war. Amer and Raghda met and fell in love in a Syrian prison fifteen years ago. They were both political prisoners – Amer was a Palestinian freedom fighter, Raghda a Syrian revolutionary…

Continue

★★★★☆ Jon Stewart’s assured directorial debut Rosewater (2014) is a dramatic reconstruction of the real-life arrest and detention of Iranian-Canadian filmmaker and journalist Maziar Bahari (Gael Garcia-Bernal). In 2009, Bahari was detained in solitary confinement in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison accused of espionage. Although based in London, Bahari had come to Iran to visit his…

Continue

★★★★☆ Anna Muylaert’s heartwarming The Second Mother (2015) stars Regina Casé as Val, a live-in housekeeper for a wealthy family in São Paulo, has helped bring up their 17-year-old son Fabinho (Michel Joelsas). She loves him as her own and he adores her. But Val’s work comes at a price. She was forced to leave behind her…

Continue

★★★★★ Closed Curtain (2013), Jafar Panahi’s symbolically charged follow-up to his critically acclaimed This Is Not a Film (2012), is about state repression, censorship, depression and the intersection between art and reality. Echoes of the former Soviet Union’s ‘Iron Curtain’ are reflected in the title. The superb opening shot is filmed through the security grill…

Continue

★★★☆☆ Largely due to its popularity in the Indian sub-continent, cricket is now the second most popular sport in the world. In 2011, two journalists, Brit Sam Collins and Aussie Jarrod Kimber, united by a love of the game, set out to make a film about the future of Test cricket. Death of a Gentleman…

Continue