Though none of the young leads play a particularly personable character, it is a testament to the overall quality of the piece - writing, direction and performances alike - that one nevertheless feels for them.
Although writer/director Rohan Kanawade grew up in the city, there is a deep sense of authenticity about the village setting, and the whole film is handled with a rare degree of sensitivity.
Anand, a 30-something city dweller compelled to spend a 10-day mourning period for his father in the rugged countryside of western India, tenderly bonds with a local farmer struggling to stay unmarried. As the mourning ends, forcing his return, Anand must decide the fate of his relationship born under duress.
Most interestingly, the documentary takes us back in time to when Ruth Finley was hired as a girl Friday by the number-one fashion publicist, Eleonor Lambert, who was pivotal in getting American designers the recognition they deserved in the 1940s.
Ruth Finley has been the queen of the fashion industry since the 1930s. As a young mother, Ruth created the iconic pink Fashion Calendar, a publication that continues to organise and marshal American fashion today.
Without the soft focus common in representations of female subjects, we get to see their faces in all their lived-in three dimensionality.
A coming-of-golden-age look at Florida's most dedicated dance team for women over 60, shaking up the outdated image of "the little old lady," and calling for everyone to dance their hearts out, while they still can.
The lads’ delight at their early success is engaging, and both stars acquit themselves well.
Two Scottish lads from Dundee conned the music industry by pretending to be an established Californian rap duo, bagging a record deal and appearing on MTV until their scam unraveled.
Cassigoli and Kaufmann avoid major plot turns in favour of the more believable everyday things that many teenagers on the fringes encounter..
Jamila is an exuberant Moroccan girl with street smarts, who seems to have enormous potential to achieve great things - or else trigger mega-disasters. Californie follows her day in and day out from age 9 to 14, in the small town in southern Italy where she lives.
This is not an erotic movie, true there are copious scenes of copulation... but Brass doesn't linger on them long enough for them to become titillating, he has to show something gross and/or bloody in the same scene.
Graphic retelling of the story of the Roman emperor.
It belongs on the big screen, to a world of cinematic sensation beyond lightweight blockbusters and under-financed independents.
A complete restructuring of the 1980 film, made from previously unused material shot at the same time, this is a fictionalised take on the story of Caligula as he kills his devious adoptive grandfather and takes control of the decadent Roman Empire, spiralling into depravity, devastation and madness.
This isn’t a fuzzy celebration of making do with what you have as you get older but of embracing the passions that endure.
An aging Spanish woman in Tangier resists her daughter's decision to sell her home. Determined to stay, she does everything she can to keep her home and reclaim the belongings of a lifetime.
With two locations acting as stage for two very different types of action, the film could easily have fractured. It doesn’t.
After the courthouse is hijacked by the brother of a man she has just sentenced sentenced, a judge must rely on her strength and skills to find a way to end the standoff, save the hostages, and make her escape.
Nagy and her screenwriters’ disciplined refusal to pursue grandiose storylines results in a well-earned sense of community.
Chicago, 1968: after having a life-saving secret abortion, a suburban housewife seeks to give women access to healthy and safe abortions through an underground collective of women known as "Jane".
Pilcher strikes a good balance between interpersonal drama, nerve-racking action scenes and focus on the cat and mouse game that the women are caught up in.
A drama inspired by true stories of women recruited as spies during the Second World War, who were sent to occupied France to disrupt the Nazis.
It's usually Keoghan who gets the acting plaudits, but though he is good as a wannabe bad guy, it's Jarvis who provides the heft, in more ways than one here.
Thriller about a crime enforcer for a clan of drug dealers, while also trying to be a good father to his autistic son.
Screenwriter Isa Mazzei is a former camgirl herself and it shows in the film’s focus on the business side of proceedings, but director Daniel Goldhaber extends her work in a much stranger direction.
A sex cam worker finds that her identity has been appropriated by a mysterious doppelgänger.
McCall draws on Cardiff's life-long love of painting to adopt a similarly impressionistic style, brushing broad sweeps of anecdote and recollection about the cameraman on to his canvas to create a complex and emotionally engaging picture.
Documentary about the work of the prolific cinema- tographer/ director. Read our exclusive interview with director Craig McCall.
Despite the dangers of the journey, The Camino Voyage is, for the most part, a gentle, lyrical film.
Four people undertake a three year voyage to the shrine of the apostle St James in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in A Coruña, in their own homemade boat.
Not much explanation is needed to be immersed in the mournful and well-edited examination of a city in which the citizens become unwitting "foot soldiers" in a shapeless but enduring war.
Documentary charting organised crime in Naples using archive footage.
The writers start from a place where the screw is already turned and, just when you think they can't get it any tighter, find new ways to increase the tension - matching their torque with action.
Manuel, an influential deputy secretary of an regional government who has everything going his way, finds himself fighting for survival when news of his involvement in a corruption ring leaks out.
Candidates Of Death becomes a quiet celebration of all the positive things that can come from creative endeavour besides the end product itself.
A father goes on holiday with his son and two of his friends, during which time they make an amateur horror film together. As the years pass, they continue to shoot scenes for their “handcrafted,” carefree, imaginative horror project, with even more passion, dutiful consistency, and unwavering commitment: the documentary chronicles a decade of this adventure.
The characters are wonderfully drawn, each with their own complexities which go beyond their reasons for doing this job, and the acting is strong all round.
A seemingly naïve and devout young woman finds her way in the underground world of truck stop sex workers a.k.a. 'lot lizards'.
Banua-Simon offers a strong critique of the situation, and particularly the housing crisis. But he also keeps in plenty of, often light-hearted, personal detail about his Uncle Henry, who acts as a guide of sorts to the island.
Sociopolitical portrait of the Hawaiian island of Kauaʻi.
For a film based around a distressing situation, Canola incorporates a lot of comedy, poking fun at stereotypes of islanders and city folks and drawing on its solid supporting cast for character-based humour.
Many years after a little girl's disappearance, a teenager arrives at her grandmother's home,, claiming to be her, but something doesn't feel right.
'By concentrating on the bawdier Tales and disregarding their sequence, the director's interpretation obscures the way in which tales would engage in a dialogue with one another somewhat'
Bawdy retelling of the medieval
Chaucerian stories.
It doesn't quite manage to smuggle its magic through.
Nicole's discovery of an eviction notice shatters her family's houseboat vacation, forcing them to confront their patriarch's troubles, lost homes, and fractured identities.
There is nothing charming left in this all-is-lost and boys-will-be-boys scenario when violence perpetuates itself and decency is nowhere to be found.
At the end of the Second World War, a young German soldier steals a captain's uniform. Impersonating an officer he gathers a group of deserters and proceeds to kill is way through a beaten Nazi Germany.
There comes a point where ingredients stop being a recipe and start resembling a shopping list.
Sam Wilson, the new Captain America, finds himself in the middle of an international incident and must discover the motive behind a nefarious global plan.
It feels like you're watching the trailer for the much better movie you wish they'd made.
After being deemed unfit for military service, Steve Rogers volunteers for a top secret research project that turns him into Captain America, a superhero dedicated to defending America's ideals.
