IFFR 2016: Préjudice review
★★★☆☆ Notions of marginalisation, responsibility and the ambiguities of nature versus nurture all collide in Antoine Cuypers’ handsome and austere feature debut, Préjudice. The film […]
IFFR 2016: Garbage Helicopter review
★★★☆☆ What keeps running but never gets anywhere? This riddle is posed on a number of occasions during writer-director Jonas Selber Augustsén’s head-scratcher of a […]
IFFR 2016: The Bride review
★★★☆☆ The bold and deeply felt symbolism of Federico García Lorca’s famous matrimonial drama, Blood Wedding, makes it ripe for cinematic treatment. There are rich […]
IFFR 2016: As I Open My Eyes review
★★★★☆ How do you solve a problem like Farah? Principled, articulate but pig-headed, she is the whirlwind around whom Tunisian director Leyla Bouzid builds her […]
IFFR 2016: Our top picks
The International Film Festival Rotterdam kicks off its 45th edition this evening with the world premiere of Dutch survival drama Beyond Sleep. Directed by Boudewijn […]
Russian Film Festival 2013: ‘Winter Path’ review
★★★☆☆ Despite Putin’s ‘gay propaganda’ law banning the promotion of “non-standard sexual relations”, Liubov Lvova and Sergei Taramaev’s Winter Path (2013) somehow managed to gain […]
Russian Film Festival 2013: ‘Shame’ review
★★★★☆ Yusup Razykov’s Shame (Styd, 2013) continues the Uzbekistani director’s sociopolitical critique of Russian society with a maritime tragedy that echoes the contentious Kursk submarine […]
Russian Film Festival 2013: ‘Pipeline’ review
★★★★☆ Winner of the Best Documentary prize at Karlovy Vary, Vitaly Mansky’s Pipeline (2013) explores the connections between those living along the route of the […]
Russian Film Week 2013: Intimate Parts review
★★★☆☆ The debut feature from Natasha Merkulova, Intimate Parts (2013) is an acerbic and comedic exploration of attitudes towards sexuality amongst the intelligentsia of contemporary […]
Russian Film Festival 2013: ‘The Geographer Drank His Globe Away’
★★★☆☆ Winner of the Grand Prix prize at this year’s Kinotavr Film Festival, Aleksandr Veledinskiy’s The Geographer Drank His Globe Away (2013) stars Konstantin Khabenskiy […]
Russian Film Festival 2013: ‘Bite the Dust’ review
★★★☆☆ The only Russian film to appear at Cannes this year, Taisia Igumentseva’s debut feature Bite the Dust (2013) confounded critics typically more accustomed to […]
Russian Film Festival 2013: ‘Betrayal’ review
★★☆☆☆ Themes of distrust, obsession and revenge all combine to somewhat underwhelming effect in Kirill Serebrennikov’s Betrayal (2012), a downbeat and ironically passionless excursion into […]