Built on strong imagery rather than substantive narrative.
Sudan, near the Merowe dam. Maher works in a traditional brickyard fed by the waters of the Nile. Every evening, he secretly builds a mysterious construction made of mud.
Daniel Zelk Berk’s feature has all the essential ingredients of a political thriller - a moody grey-blue filter, a tingling, foreboding score and people throwing back whiskies while staring drearily into space.
A German spy must retrieve a chemical weapons expert in Syria in the wake of the fall of Berlin Wall.
The drab decay, no less moral than material, of both Karrer and the town that he haunts is so beautifully composed that no cinephile will begrudge Tarr the occasional longueur.
Study of a man and his obssession with a bar singer.
A deep understanding of the period and cultural context gives it a weight of authenticity.
A young widow, faces an impossible choice when a ship sinks off the coast of her isolated fishing village during a cruel winter. With their food supplies dwindling, Eva and her town must decide whether to rescue the shipwrecked sailors or let them perish to ensure their own survival.
As with Boulifa’s first film, much here is built not upon what a specific character does but on another character’s reaction to that.
Selim follows his mother from place to place, forever trying to outrun the latest scandal she's been caught up in. When they arrive in Tangier, new opportunities will give them a shot at the legitimacy they each crave – but not without threatening their fragile love for one another.
Animator Momoko Seto primarily deserves praise for imbuing each seed with a distinctive personality so that although the film is without dialogue we always know which of our adventurers we’re observing.
Dendelion, Baraban, Léonto and Taraxa - four dandelion achenes that survive from a series of nuclear explosions destroying Earth - are propelled into the cosmos. After crash-landing on an unknown planet, they set out in search of soil where their species might survive.
As the story glides gracefully from pitch-black comedy to complicated tragedy, you are in no doubt this is a film which happened at the right time in the careers of its two central stars, and for cinema.
Making a game out of sex, love and relationships has dire consequences in eighteenth century France.
The viewer’s attention is grabbed by the sheer weight of the subject, the apparent cluelessness of the Westerners and a camera that is comfortable with but not indifferent to the stark reality of war.
Tourists seek extreme combat experiences in war documentary.
Schwarzenegger handles his role with a restraint unusual in actors his age, so that even viewers with a strong sense of what's coming will warm to him or wonder how bad he can really be.
A troubled college freshman, Luke, suffers a violent family trauma and resurrects his childhood imaginary friend Daniel to help him cope.
Rather than focusing on drab and desolate imagery as similar films have done, this one frequently presents us with atrocities taking place in bright daylight in rural landscapes which seem both too beautiful and too humble to contain them.
The story of a ten-year-old girl's experiences in a concentration camp in Croatia during the Second World War.
The more sophisticated parts of the narrative are developed in flashback and this is where Alderson shows his potential, working particularly well with younger actors and showing a good understanding of the dynamics of childhood.
When a man awakens in a basement with three other prisoners, he must engage in a twisted battle to solve the puzzle to his past and save his family's future.
There's a lot packed into Justin P Lange's downbeat horror fable.
Undead and hating it, young flesh-eater Mina haunts the woods surrounding her childhood home. When she befriends a physically abused boy, she must figure out why, for once, she isn’t feeling homicidal.
What you suspect will happen almost certainly will
After a disease killed 98% of young people in the US, the 2% who managed to survive have developed superpowers, but have been locked in internment camps. One teenager escapes.
Darkest Miriam makes use of absurdist humour to explore the sense of unreality that…bereavement can create.
The fog of grief shrouding Miriam, a branch librarian, begins to lift when she starts a love affair with cab
driver Janko. But what’s the deal with the vaguely threatening letters she keeps finding?
Outside of the Russian Roulette scenes, the film has much more visual appeal, with noirish cinematography and a fluid style which recalls director Howard J Ford’s early work with his brother Jonathan.
A determined detective is in a race against time to stop a dark web game in which captives are forced to compete for their lives.
What would it mean to live in a world where damnation was a very real and tangible prospect and yet, because of one's immutable nature, nothing one did could make a difference to one's fate?
On a secluded farm in a nondescript rural town, a man is slowly dying. His family gathers to mourn, and soon a darkness grows, marked by waking nightmares and a growing sense that something evil is taking over the family.
Strathie succeeds in capturing a bit of the Spielberg-style magic he's aiming for and in quieter scenes where we're allowed to experience wonder instead of being told what to feel, it's an enchanting experience.
A year after the disappearance of their 8-year-old daughter, grieving parents return home with friends and family from her memorial service in their small town. Suddenly strange lights appear in the nearby forest and everyone is exposed to inexplicable phenomena - but things are about get much more disturbing.
There is plenty of mystery for those who enjoy such things, and it’s well put together, but it’s only one aspect of a film which is really interested in what people choose not to consider and in how people allow themselves to be misdirected.
When a documentary team set out to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a young girl, events soon take an unexpected turn, leading the filmmakers down an increasingly dark and horrifying path.
The colour saturation in these images is simply delicious. Gorgeous costume work by Guido Bongiorno makes the most of it, and Rome itself seems to have set out to please.
A woman who has lost her sight in her car crash and is guided by a young Chinese orphan tries to escape the serial killer who is stalking the streets of Rome armed with deadly cello strings.
Brady knows the landscape well and makes effective use of it.
Members of a therapy group are forced to confront the monsters of their past when an isolated weekend retreat tests their emotional resilience and ability to survive.
