Matthew Anderson
-
Glasgow 2021: Spring Tide review
★★★☆☆ Three female members of a family struggle with multi-generational secrets, trauma and the hardships of motherhood in Yang Lina’s Spring Tide. The Chinese filmmaker, whose past work lies predominantly in documentary, inspects the past, present and future of a nation by pulling apart the ties, lies and aspirations of a grandmother, her daughter and…
-
Glasgow 2021: My Favorite War review
★★★☆☆ Bookended by visits to the same stretch of coastline under very different circumstances, Ilze Burkovska Jacobsen’s My Favorite War makes a perilous journey into her nation’s past through the eyes of an artist – or in her case journalist – as a younger woman. A self-portrait of sorts, the Latvian-Norwegian filmmaker seeks to come…
-
Glasgow 2021: In the Shadows review
★★★★☆ An isolated, run-down coal mine, enclosed by high-sided valley walls, is the forbidding, dystopian setting of Erdem Tepegöz’s impressive third feature, In the Shadows. Shackled not so much by the harshness of their physical surroundings, but unseen omnipotent forces which control their every waking hour, the oppressed workforce dare not step out of line.…
-
Film Review: IWOW: I Walk on Water
★★★★☆ Khalik Allah’s IWOW: I Walk on Water is an ambitious, bewildering stream of consciousness; visual, aural, even ethereal. A film that looks past first impressions, and stops, taking the time to listen and learn about faces, places and stories too easily disregarded, it purposefully eschews any kind of generic classification or simple payoff. With…
-
Glasgow 2021: Programme preview
Following successful outings for CPH:DOX and the BFI London Film Festival in 2020, and digital editions of Sundance and Rotterdam taking place since the turn of the year, the 2021 Glasgow Film Festival follows suit in going online. Keen cinephiles across the UK will be able to log in to the Glasgow Film At Home…
-
Sundance 2021: In the Same Breath review
★★★★★ In the Same Breath, Nanfu Wang’s searing expose of the origins of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and its pursuant handling by the Chinese and U.S. governments, is a film of contradictions, conflict and cover-ups. A galling, distressing but enthralling documentary, it opens and closes with New Year’s Eve celebrations in Wuhan, the epicentre of…
-
Sundance 2021: Captains of Zaatari review
★★★★☆ Tell any football fan that ‘It’s just a game’ and they are likely to give you very short shrift. But for close friends Mahmoud Dagher and Fawzi Qatleesh the stakes are considerably higher. For in Ali El Arabi’s stirring documentary Captains of Zaatari their love for the beautiful game offers purpose, opportunity and a…
-
Sundance 2021: At the Ready review
★★★★☆ Building bridges between the past, present and future of three Latinx teens in El Paso, Texas, Maisie Crow’s At the Ready investigates one of the US’s most contentious domestic issues – immigration across its southern border – from an unorthodox angle. Cristina, César and Mason (who came out as transgender after filming and is…
-
Sundance 2021: Prime Time review
★★☆☆☆ Jakub Piątek’s Prime Time is a claustrophobic chamber piece set in Warsaw on New Year’s Eve, 1999. Bringing his narrative feature debut to Sundance in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition, the Polish writer-director harks back twenty years to an age of VHS tapes, analogue television and robotic Nokia ringtones. Co-written with Łukasz Czapski, the script pits lone gunman…
-
Sundance 2021: President review
★★★★☆ “This is a war room. I am here for a fight.” Under no illusion as to the scale of the task at hand, the deck is stacked against leader of the Movement for Democratic Change party and presidential candidate, Nelson Chamisa. A follow-up to her 2014 film Democrats, Camilla Nielsson’s President tracks the rocky…