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IFFR 2019: Koko-di Koko-da review
★★★★☆ In Swedish filmmaker Johannes Nyholm’s second feature Koko-di Koko-da, three bizarre characters from a children’s music box come to life to haunt a grief-stricken couple as they try to escape from a nightmarish cyclical maze of a scenario which unfolds each time in the middle of a forest. In an interview, Johannes Nyholm described…
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Film Review: A Private War
★★★★★ Matthew Heineman, best-known for his acclaimed documentaries Cartel Land and City of Ghosts, seamlessly makes the transition to fiction with the utterly absorbing and emotionally searing Marie Colvin drama A Private War. Anchored by a career-best performance from Rosamund Pike and flawless direction and storytelling by Heineman, A Private War - named after and based…
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Berlin 2019: The Plagiarists review
★★★★☆ A pair of self-absorbed millennials are forced to confront the lack of originality behind their ideas in Peter Parlow’s The Plagiarists, a dramatic comedy that asks the questions; who has the “right” to access culture and who possesses the authority to speak on its behalf? The film opens with an argument between aspiring memoirist…
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Film Review: Monos
★★★★☆ In Monos, a diverse group of hormonal teenage soldiers man an isolated outpost during an unseen war. Their station is a misty mountaintop dotted with monolithic concrete structures. It is said to be somewhere in Colombia but could easily be mistaken for the Scottish highlands. They’re tasked with watching over a POW who is…
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Berlin 2019: The Golden Glove review
★★★☆☆ The seemingly unlikely tale of how Fatih Akin’s The Golden Glove got greenlit, funded and selected for competition at the Berlinale warrants further investigation. The German-Turkish director of The Cut and In The Fade has never shied away from hot button topics, nor has he ever beat around the bush when it comes to…
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Berlin 2019: God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya review
★★★☆☆ Teona Strugar Mitevska’s previous film When the Day Had No Name was a bleak exploration of the cultural tensions in Macedonia, demonstrating how a world built on violence will inevitably breed more violence. It was a bold, if flawed, dissection of macho culture in the Balkans, a theme she develops further in God Exists, Her…
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Berlin 2019: Earth review
★★★★☆ Highlighting the significant impact of mining and large-scale construction on the planet’s ecosystem, the latest film from documentarian Nikolaus Geyrhalter Earth is a powerful example of politically charged landscape filmmaking. A brief introduction underlines the extent to which mankind is now the most destructive force on the planet. Every year, 60 million tonnes of…
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DVD Review: Blindspotting
★★★★☆ Alongside Get Out, Boots Riley’s astonishing Sorry to Bother You and the blistering TV comedy-drama Atlanta, Carlos López Estrada’s feature debut Blindspotting is the latest in a new moment in social American cinema. Rarely taking the simplistic approach, the Mexican-American director tackles intersectional identity, race and class in this fierce satire on urban Americana. Fresh out…
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Baftas 2019: The Favourite wins seven, Roma is Best Film
Hosted by Joanna Lumley, last night’s Baftas ceremony saw Yorgos Lanthimos’ acclaimed The Favourite pick up seven of the twelve awards it was nominated for including Outstanding British Film, Best Actress for Olivia Colman and Best Supporting Actress for Rachel Weisz. Best Film and Best Director went to Alfonso Cuarón and Roma, while Rami Malek was awarded Best…
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Berlin 2019: Out Stealing Horses review
★★★☆☆ Hans Petter Moland is a peculiarity: a Norwegian born and based filmmaker of unmistakably American genre sensibilities. His 2014 film In Order of Disappearance was a darkly comic western revenge flick with more than a little of the Coen brothers about it – not least in the character played by Stellen Skarsgård, who roamed the…
VENICE 2026
