independent cinema
Adam Sweeting
This account of the aftermath of a sexual assault is handled with a clear-headed restraint and attention to detail that’s refreshing in the feverish post-Weinstein climate. The Light of the Moon (released on Amazon Prime) is the first feature by writer-director Jessica M Thompson, who has leveraged maximum value from her cast and a shoestring budget to create a low-key but potent sign-of-the-times bulletin.If the subject matter fills you with apprehension about preachiness or propaganda, Thompson is already ahead of you. The film’s central issue is what it is, but while telling the story of Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
Beach Rats is a film that has “indie” etched in its bones. The second feature from Brooklyn-born Eliza Hittman, it was made with support from New York's independent outfit Cinereach, and went through development at the Sundance Labs. Appropriately, it took that festival's Best Feature Director award last year.It’s strong on the kind of atmosphere that might easily float into nowhere, but is backed up by a striking performance from British newcomer Harris Dickinson that holds the attention in the subtlest ways. Dickinson plays 19-year-old Frankie, who’s on the cusp of adulthood and apparently Read more ...
Saskia Baron
In Between didn’t get nearly enough attention on its cinema release in the UK last autumn, hampered perhaps by its nothingy title and a synopsis that can make it sound like it will be a worthy evening out when in fact it’s anything but. One of the liveliest debut features of 2017, it follows three twenty-something Palestinian women who share a flat in Tel Aviv. It’s sharp, funny and eye-opening.Director Maysaloun Hamoud draws on her experience as an Arab film-maker living in Israel to create a wholly fresh take on sexual and cultural politics. Imagine Girls and Sex in the City but without the Read more ...
Owen Richards
We follow Kabwita Kasongo on his morning routine, lingering over the shoulder as he treks through the village. A pastel sunrise greets vast landscapes, the morning breeze visible for miles around. He heads to a tree at the edge of a mountain, and begins a day’s work chopping it down. It’s a stunning opening sequence which prepares you for the visceral journey ahead.Kabwita is a charcoal salesman; a gruelling job which consists of chopping down a large tree, cutting it to pieces, burying the pieces, burning them, and then travelling 50 km on foot to sell at them at anywhere between 2,500 to 5, Read more ...
Owen Richards
Daphne, the independent feature debut from director Peter Mackie Burns, was released to little fanfare last year, a fact somewhat emphasised by the other films advertised on its DVD release – Moonlight and Lady Macbeth – more lauded releases from distributor Altitude Films. Even the special features fail to commemorate anything but the trailer. But don’t be fooled; Daphne is a hidden gem of British humanist filmmaking.Daphne is a 31-year-old with no direction and very little regard for her wellbeing. Her intelligence and wit give her a magnetism, but it’s soon clear that she’s a useless Read more ...
Owen Richards
Hounds of Love is the latest in a long line of small-budget Australian horrors “based on true events” – it must be something about the heat. However, stellar performances and a refreshing depth in characterisation make this thriller stand apart from its genre mates.On paper, Hounds of Love sounds grimly formulaic: sociopaths John and Evie White abduct a young girl from the streets of Perth, chain her to a bed and perform gruesome acts on their new plaything. But where lesser films would find twisted thrills in torture, first time director/writer Ben Young instead draws tension from the Read more ...
theartsdesk
It was the night Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, those old robbers on the run, will want to forget. Thanks to a clerical error, the Oscar for Best Picture briefly ended up in the clutch of the overwhelming favourite. Then the mistake was spotted and La La Land had to cede ground to Moonlight. This was a sweet moment for the considerable choir behind the backlash against Damien Chazelle's film. There's room for both, and plenty more, in theartsdesk film writers' picks of their favourite films. We also nominate a few stinkers because bad films deserve to be called out, too. Feel free to Read more ...
Owen Richards
In the most unlikely of places, there is one of the world’s most prolific directors. He has produced over 110 films, he’s mobbed wherever he goes, and he inspired people through the darkest of civil wars; yet outside of Afghanistan, no-one knows the name of Salim Shaheen, the self-proclaimed "Prince of Nothingwood".This documentary, directed by French radio journalist Sonia Kronlund, revels in the surreal nature of the world’s poorest film industry. Salim Shaheen is a whirlwind of bravado – a former army general turned auteur, leading a motley crew of ex-soldiers and sons across Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Like a bizarro-world echo of Lenny Abrahamson’s Academy-titillating Room, Dave McCary’s endearing indie feature takes a potentially hideous tale of abduction and control and transforms it using the amazing healing powers of fantasy and creativity. James Pope, a fully-fledged bespectacled geek, has been living a strange life of outer-space style confinement in a desert bunker in the midst – or so he’s been led to believe – of an arid wilderness in which the air is too toxic to breathe. His sole entertainment is a crude TV animation series about the intergalactic hero, Brigsby Bear, which is Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
Icelandic writer-director Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson has made an impressive feature debut with this story of crossing the threshold from childhood to young adult experience. Heartstone acutely and empathetically catches the path from innocence to experience of its two 14-year-old protagonists, Thor (Baldur Einarsson) and Kristján (Blær Hinriksson), in which the film’s twin themes, coming of age and coming out, become uneasily intertwined.Gudmundsson opens his story at a leisurely pace – and, at a few minutes over the two-hour mark, there’s no calling its rhythm hurried – as we discover the Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
In the week that the police announced the final Grenfell Tower fire death toll, this is a timely release. Paul Sng’s 82-minute documentary, narrated by the actress Maxine Peake, is a serious investigation into the state of social housing in the UK, most especially the way it’s being co-opted into the private sector to make as much money as possible for corporate free market ideologues and those trailing in their wake.Sng, along with his cinematographer Nick Ward and editor Josh Alward, have made a small budget go a long way, utilising striking imagery of urban desolation, intercut with old, Read more ...
Saskia Baron
This is not a movie to see in the front row – intrusive close-ups, hand-held camerawork, colour saturated night shots and a relentless synthesiser score all conspire to make Good Time a wild ride. An unrecognisable Robert Pattinson plays Connie Nikas, a nervy con artist who enlists his intellectually disabled brother Nick in a bank robbery. The heist goes horribly wrong and the camera clings to the brothers and their nightmarish fate over the next 24 hours. Directed by real-life brothers Josh and Benny Safdie (the latter also plays Nick), Good Time sometimes plays like an Read more ...