Supporting Indie Film
Written and directed by Stéphane Riethauser, a family saga based on private archive footage, where a flamboyant 90-year-old grandmother and her filmmaker grandson (Riethauser) explore the development and transmission of gender identity in a patriarchal environment.
Continue reading “Review: Madame”
Written and directed by Heidi Ewing, co-written by Alan Page, ambition and societal pressure propel an aspiring chef to leave his soulmate in Mexico and make the treacherous journey to New York, where life will never be the same. Starring: Armando Espitia, Christian Vazquez, Michelle Rodríguez, Ángeles Cruz, Raúl Briones, Arcelia Ramírez, Pascacio López, Michelle González, Iván García and Gerardo Zabaleta.
Continue reading “Review: I Carry You With Me (Te Llevo Conmigo)”
Written and directed by Jooyeon Lee, filmed during lockdown, a performance film about care centred around a phone conversation between a cleaning agency employee and a woman trying to empty a locked fridge. When the two women meet-up they engage in a strange dance through the streets of Seoul, locked together back-to-back in a movement of mutual support and dependence. Starring: Seungmin Chu and Un Lee.
Continue reading “Review: Back to Back”
Directed by Azazel Jacobs and written by Patrick DeWitt, an ageing Manhattan socialite living on what’s barely left of her inheritance moves to a small apartment in Paris with her son and cat. Starring: Michelle Pfeiffer, Lucas Hedges, Tracy Letts, Valerie Mahaffey, Susan Coyne, Imogen Poots, Danielle Macdonald and Isaach De Bankolé.
Continue reading “Review: French Exit”
Directed by Kiran Kaur Brar, an autobiographical account of a second-generation British South Asian woman’s experiences with the police, racism and violence in London.
Continue reading “Review: Boots on Ground”
Directed by Anya Tsyrlina, a found footage documentary in which material taken from late-Soviet propaganda films about gender equality is reconstructed to imagine a world populated entirely by women. The film depicts women performing an increasingly broad range of roles from the mundane to the extraordinary.
Continue reading “Review: All Other Things Equal”
Directed by Gorô Miyazaki and written by Keiko Niwa and Emi Gunji, an orphan girl, Earwig, is adopted by a witch and comes home to a spooky house filled with mystery and magic. Voiced by: Shinobu Terajima, Etsushi Toyokawa, Gaku Hamada and Kokoro Hirasawa.
Continue reading “Review: Earwig and the Witch”
Directed by Sion Sono and written by Aaron Hendry and Reza Sixo Safai, a notorious criminal must break an evil curse in order to rescue an abducted girl who has mysteriously disappeared. Starring: Nicolas Cage, Sofia Boutella, Bill Moseley, Nick Cassavetes and Tak Sakaguchi.
Continue reading “Review: Prisoners of the Ghostland”
Directed by Darragh Carey and Bertrand Deroches, written by Carey, Rupert Baynham and Chi Mai, wealthy YouTuber Leah chooses shy youth Benji as the subject of her Brixton documentary. They fall for each other, but the desire for edgy footage leads them down a violent path. Starring: Ola Orebiyi, Lily Newmark, Craige Middleburg, Barney Harris and Jaime Winstone.
Continue reading “Review: A Brixton Tale”
Written and directed by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw, deep in the forests of Piedmont, Italy, a handful of men, seventy or eighty years old, hunt for the rare and expensive white Alba truffle-which to date has resisted all of modern science’s efforts at cultivation.
Continue reading “Review: The Truffle Hunters”
Directed by Noriaki Yuasa and written by Kimiyuki Hasegawa, a young girl named Sayuri is reunited with her estranged family after years in an orphanage, but discovers that her home-life involves an amnesiac mother, her sister is confined to the attic and begins to wonder if this is related to her father’s experiments with poisonous snakes. Starring: Kuniko Miyake, Yuko Hamada, Sachiko Meguro, Yachie Matsui, Yoshiro Kitahara, Sei Hiraizumi and Mayumi Takahashi.
Continue reading “Review: The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch”