A film both extreme and tender, yet tremendously entertaining.
A revenge drama from South Korea creates a mystery for the long term prisoner who is released. Now out to own as part of the Vengeance Trilogy box set.
Although Whale is working with clichés, many of them were only established in literary form in 1932, and are presented on film here for the first time in forms that continue to be imitated to this day.
A couple run into trouble after they are stranded by a storm.
McKee’s camera, which moves around like a living presence and always seems to be on the brink of discovering something terrible, makes it impossible to relax for long.
When a lost hiker stumbles upon an erratic old man living in the woods, he could never have imagined the nightmare that awaits.
Nothing here is quite what it seems, and Powers delights in upsetting expectations.
In the remote Portuguese mountain village of Pé da Serra, a monk arrives wielding a demonic sword. Before long, the mystical weapon ends up in the hands of the town drunk. Now, the drunkard and the sword will have to learn to fight an encroaching evil together.
Viewers … must be patient and wait for their rewards – but like the old man, we are sometimes caught be surprise, confronted with sudden moments of exquisite beauty.
As the old man goes about his day to day toil on the land, his children squabble over its future.
A musing on the future of The Old Oak, the last remaining pub in a village in Northeast England, where people are leaving the land as the mines are closed. Houses are cheap and available, thus making it an ideal location for Syrian refugees.
Canales gives an intensely committed performance in a role which saw her strapped down on a freezing cold floor for hours.
A journalist of Mexican origin, travels to her ancestral home in Veracruz to investigate a story of sorcery and healing. There, she is kidnapped by a group of locals who claim she's the devil incarnated.
The first-time director shows an adept grip when it comes to the rhythms of her craft, letting silence or specific sounds break out at unexpected moments, including a gripping scene when all we can hear is the spring and creak of the uneven bars.
2013. A 15-year-old gymnast is torn between Switzerland - where she is training for the European Championship in preparation for the Olympics - and Ukraine, where her mother is a journalist, reporting on Euromaidan unrest.
This documentary is a treasure trove full of interesting bits and pieces many of which could easily provide enough material for a film in their own right.
Olympic Dreams brings warmth to these snowy vistas and finds a special kind of joy that might be impossible without the loneliness surrounding it.
When a young woman discovers that her lifelong dream of participating in the Olympics doesn’t match up to reality, she finds herself adrift amongst the crowds. That is until she befriends a volunteer dentist, forging a bond which forces them both to rethink their courses in life.
There may be a rumbling of trouble in the background, but Machoian and Webley capture the way that this doesn’t impinge on the feeling of joy that can come in a moment.
After a family tragedy, siblings Ella and Charlie are unexpectedly woken up by their dad and taken on a journey across the country, experiencing a world they’ve never seen before. As their adventure unfolds, Ella begins to understand that things might not be what they seem.
More a portrait of a friendship than of Omar and Cedric as creative artists.
The story of the intimate, artistic and personal relationship between Omar Rodriguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Zavala from progressive band The Mars Volta.
There is plenty of potential here but it's a shame we spend so much time simply following the surface trajectory of Margo's life rather than diving into its emotional depths.
A young woman flees her home in search of her mum after a tragic incident.
It’s a film which uses experimental techniques to explore its themes, delivering something more like poetry than linear storytelling.
Biodiversity and generation gaps collide in a politically urgent and thoughtful film about two young activists' fight to save the vast Finnish forests.
Sengupta has created a colourful, multi-layered and rich work that can be read in many ways, despite its flaws.
After the loss of her daughter, Ela not only loses her identity as a mother, but also the only reason to be with her husband. But she finds starting the new life she wants isn't easy.
A film which will remind its viewers why they fell in love with cinema in the first place.
The story of Wakaliwood, the grassroots film industry born in the slums of Kampala which is all about action and entertainment and the conviction that in the movies, nothing is impossible.
Although it may be a remote arm of the Venezuelan body politic, it mirrors a political and environmental malaise that is coursing through the veins of the country.
Once upon a time, the Venezuelan village of Congo Mirador was prosperous, alive with fisherman and poets. Now it is decaying and disintegrating – a small but prophetic reflection of Venezuela itself.
Throughout the film there is a sense of play, and even as the story evolves to take on darker material, something of that lightness, that happy-go-lucky quality remains.
The sheer existence of newly formed football team Gayvotas means defiance in a repressed society that despises them. For these women, modesty is a stranger, liberation reigns supreme and sexuality is fluid – their lives presenting a gloriously free alternative to the oppressive regime.
In an age of monstrous men, Frément’s creation stands out.
At the end of the 19th century, as a mysterious plague spreads across the countryside, a young woman living under the tyranny of her deeply religious father fights to reclaim her freedom.
With a huge, raggedy string score by Daniel Reguera, the film is big on atmosphere and never gives one the sense that its protagonists wield much control over their destinies.
Nathan and Mirra are in no way close siblings, but their father’s passing means they must return to their old family farm to sell off the land. There, Nathan starts having vivid nightmares of a woman rising from the sea, feeling the same dread his father felt before his death.
Wang and Zhang are to be commended for fitting as much in as they do, even if it does mean the film roams about rather than having a single focus.
After becoming a mother, a filmmaker uncovers the untold history of China’s one-child policy and the generations of parents and children forever shaped by this social experiment.
Seydoux is superb as she runs the emotional gamut with subtlety and empathy, demonstrating an extraordinary survival spirit in complicated circumstances.
A woman who is raising her daughter alone and looking after her dad, who has a degenerative disease, embarks on a passionate affair.
Poonpiriya shakes the past and the present gently together, sometimes with a dash of nostalgia and, at others, with a splash of regret.
Boss is a consummate ladies' man, a free spirit and a bar owner in NYC. One day, he gets a surprise call from Aood, an estranged friend who has returned home to Thailand. Dying of cancer, Aood enlists Boss' help to complete a bucket list – but both are hiding something.
The most volatile, morally complicated material is treated as turbulence to pass through rather than weather to be reported.
Filmed over 10 years, one girl’s epic journey from Syria to Germany and back again. She and her family navigate war, exile, and heartbreak in a foreign land, illuminating the complexities of the refugee experience.
Following her subjects through the tangled streets, in an out of small concrete houses or under the archways and up the stairwells where they take shelter, Navas observes them almost as if she were filming a documentary, perhaps without permission.
Iris is 17 and takes each day as it comes. When she meets the cool Renata, her life changes abruptly.
None of the characters' choices are very convincing in a project that feels more like a film school exercise than a serious attempt at connecting with an audience.
On their first date, Alex and Zoe venture out to see a movie at a local cinema. The film ends and the two become so engaged in a heated discussion that they fail to notice the cinema closing, leaving them locked inside.
The film’s difficulty is that whilst it is in many ways better made than the original, it is now no longer in the clever experimental actioner bracket.
A navy seal must stop a team of mercenaries, led by his disillusioned former comrade, from disabling the US missile defense network.
