independent cinema
GüerosFriday, 20 November 2015
Mexico City itself is the dominant presence in Alonso Ruizpalacios’ debut feature Güeros, a road movie that restricts its journey to that megapolis and its environs. It’s not just the traffic that holds them up, more the fact that they don’t really... Read more... |
TangerineWednesday, 11 November 2015
American director Sean Baker is an adept at exploring different Los Angeles worlds that we don’t often see portrayed in standard Hollywood fare. His much-acclaimed Starlet, from 2012, took us into the city’s porn industry (in an entirely non-... Read more... |
TheebThursday, 13 August 2015
The epic and the intimate combine impressively in Jordanian director Naji Abu Nowar’s debut feature Theeb. The epic is there is the scale of the stunning desert landscapes that are the backdrop – though the desert itself almost feels like a... Read more... |
DVD: While We're YoungFriday, 24 July 2015
As Noah Baumbach moves into his forties, his youthful archness is becoming increasingly tempered with a wry melancholy. It adds depth and piquancy to this story of a forty-something couple trying to come to terms with the fading of youth’s infinite... Read more... |
Dear White PeopleTuesday, 07 July 2015
US films about and aimed at African Americans broadly fall into two categories: gangsta life in the ‘hood action flicks and broad comedies, the latter niche dominated by Tyler Perry, who does for Black Americans what Mrs Brown does for Irish women.... Read more... |
AltmanWednesday, 01 April 2015
Ron Mann’s laid-back documentary about the career vicissitudes and family life of Robert Altman (1925-2006) takes its cue from the tone of the director’s films. It was Altman’s habit to observe his character’s crises, collapses, and deaths with the... Read more... |
Appropriate BehaviourMonday, 02 March 2015
There’s an engaging, indie sense of emotional flux in writer-director Desiree Akhavan’s feature debut Appropriate Behaviour, and a very funny script indeed behind it. Akhavan herself plays Shirin, daughter of a traditional Iranian-American emigre... Read more... |
Love Is AllFriday, 13 February 2015
Among contemporary British documentarists Kim Longinotto has surely travelled the furthest afield internationally – Iran, Japan, Africa – to find her subjects. Love Is All brings her resoundingly back home to Britain, across a timeline that... Read more... |
Concerning ViolenceMonday, 24 November 2014
In Concerning Violence Göran Hugo Olsson has created an almanac documentary drawing on material from Swedish television archives, filmed by a number of directors in Africa, largely in the 1970s. It’s fascinating footage, covering a number of... Read more... |
The OvernightersMonday, 27 October 2014
In The Overnighters documentarist Jesse Moss found his story and pursued it with remarkable empathy, all in the best traditions of the genre. He persuaded both sides in this tale of (quiet) confrontation to trust him, and they opened up completely.... Read more... |
DVD: LiltingTuesday, 07 October 2014
Oblique and gentle, Lilting is a tender, tough drama about Junn, a Cambodian-Chinese widow played by the legendary Pei-Pei Chang (HK’s martial arts icon known as “Queen of Swords” and recognizable to western audiences from Crouching Tiger...) and... Read more... |
DVD: A Jester's TaleTuesday, 23 September 2014
The name of Czech director Karel Zeman is far less-known in the English-speaking world than it deserves to be. He began working during World War Two, establishing a name for himself in the rich Czech animation school (and proving a later influence... Read more... |
