Festivals: London

BFI London 2023 Review: PARADISE IS BURNING (Paradiset brinner) in a Vigorous Drama about Sisterhood

Directed by Mika Gustafson, the Swedish drama stars Bianca Delbravo, Dilvin Asaad, and Safira Mossberg.

COP SERET: Future Festival Dates For Hit Icelandic Buddy Cop Comedy

A tough super-cop, in denial about his sexuality, falls in love with his new partner while investigating a string of bank robberies where nothing seems to have been stolen.   This is a public service announcement that the Icelandic buddy...

We Are One Film Festival: Tribeca And YouTube to Launch Free Virtual Film Festival For Charity

Tribeca Enterprises and YouTube have announced a virtual film festival called We Are One: A Global Film Festival which will run at the end of May and into the first week of June.    Over the run of We Are...

London 2012 Review: VILLAGE AT THE END OF THE WORLD

Life's tough when you're a teenager. All those raging hormones. The confusion, the angst, the opposite (or same) sex, what to do with your life. Issues universal to all teenagers maybe, but compound that with being the only teenager...

SAVE YOUR LEGS Trailer Knocks It Out Of The Park

We've come a long way since Bodyline. While this staid period miniseries was a huge success for George Miller and Australian television, it didn't exactly launch cricket as a genre we started seeing more on screens - whether as a backdrop...

Review: HOW TO RE-ESTABLISH A VODKA EMPIRE

Daniel Edelstyn's ramshackle but absolutely captivating documentary How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire is a pretty good argument for the idea that, if you're not sure how to tell your story, you should just throw all of it at the...

London 2011: HERE Review

Cartography is a strange discipline these days. With the physical geography of the world long since mapped (though that may change with global warming,) most cartographers are either concerned with political lines, or with incredibly detailed satellite imaging made possible...

London 2011: TRISHNA Review

Even in Michael Winterbottom's prolific and varied film career, it is probably inevitable that he would again tackle an adaptation of a classic english novel, and (as is befitting his Britishness) make a film set in India. His latest film...

London 2011: ALOIS NEBEL Review

Graphic novels might have a reputation for frivolity, but they also have been proven to be very good for dealing serious topics that require the kind of creativity offered to deal with trauma. Art Spiegelman's Maus and Joe Sacco's Safe...

London 2011: CARNAGE Review

It might seem that adapting a play for the screen is easy and fairly natural. You can recreate the setting, or add new ones. It's still a group of actors performing for an audience; they just deliver their words more...

London 2011: SNOWTOWN Review

Note to self: do not see films about killing and child abuse first thing in the morning. It will ruin your day. Which is to not to suggest that a film about such subjects is bad; far from it. When...

London 2011: MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE Review

While cults and communes are not the exclusive domain of the United States, ones located within its borders are great fodder for artistic exploration. In the case of ones that abuse residents either physically or psychologically or both, we are...

London 2011: NOBODY ELSE BUT YOU Review

Even though she died nearly 50 years ago, Marilyn Monroe still holds a fascination for many film and conspiracy theory lovers. Director and co-screenwriter Gérald Hustache-Mathieu's film Nobody Else but You is a relatively light neo-noir thriller, with rather bizarre...

London 2011: THE KID WITH A BIKE (LE GAMIN AU VÉLO) Review

The Dardenne brothers might just be the most reliable film-makers working today. With a unique brand of realist cinema they've made a succession of critically lauded dramas concerned with Belgium's grimmer locales and inhabitants. Often involving low level criminality,...

London 2011: EARLY ONE MORNING (DE BON MATIN) Review

Early One Morning (De bon matin) opens with middle-aged banker Paul Wertret (Jean-Pierre Daroussin) entering his office as normal before shooting two of his fellow workers dead without hesitation. Through a series of flashbacks as Paul sits at his desk,...

London 2011: DARK HORSE Review

Todd Solondz is either a pretty happy guy with a great imagination, or rather miserable and willing to share. Or it could be somewhere in between; either way, he has a knack for creating misanthropic characters who just can't seem...

BIFF 2011: 13 ASSASSINS review

Miike Takashi's chanbara flick 13 Assassins will probably strike a lot of people as much more impressive than it really is, if they've never seen a Kurosawa movie, read Lone Wolf & Cub or even missed out on Yôji...

BIFF 2011: MEEK'S CUTOFF review

Woe betide anyone who turns up for Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff expecting anything like a typical Western. Languid, spare and dreamlike, other than the setting and the motif of a journey across vast, inhospitable stretches of America there's little else...

Third Window Acquires SAWAKO DECIDES For Theatrical and Home Video

Our friends at Third Window Films are happy to announce their latest acquisition: Sawako Decides.  The film played to very appreciative audiences this year at Camera Japan in Rotterdam, Fantasia in Montreal, and the New York Asian Film Festival.  It...

London 2010: A SOMEWHAT GENTLE MAN Review

A farcical comic drama form Norway, Hans Petter Moland's A Somewhat Gentle Man stars Stellan Skarsgard as Ulrik, released from jail after a lengthy sentence for killing the man who slept with his wife. Re-entering the free world with more...