Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival — A–Z of films

Despite all of its shortcomings, 107 Mothers nonetheless, makes for quite a completing piece of filmmaking.

In one of the most complex and intriguing performances of 2021, Gong keeps us guessing about what Jin-na is really thinking and feeling.

I could not have wished for a more perfect first film to wean me back into the in-cinema press screening world I left behind in March 2020.

Durrani covers a lot of ground with determination.

From the first shot of a uniformed member of a cleaning team walking the tiled lip of a rooftop infinity pool this is the edge of image, the thing unseen.

Branagh has an easy way with a camera and isn't afraid of sentiment, but he offsets this with a good line in comedy that cuts through the softer stuff like an astringent.

Emotions here are betrayed by the twitch of a knife, a violent dream, an envelope crumpled in a hand or a long toke on a cigarette.

Nikki has a light touch with a script that is able to see the funny side of things but which doesn't make light of the medical and societal situations that Jaakko and Sirpa are facing.

Bloody Oranges is condemned to straddle between two half-baked tones.

Given the state of the things, it's fair to say that some of the situations that will arise are telegraphed ahead of time, but that adds rather than detracts from the tension - after all, aren't all satisfying meals in some ways connected to anticipation?

After the fantastic opening scene, snapshots of their life in Georgia set the tone.

The director shows the warmth of the children against the cool aloofness of teachers who feel little connection to their wards, even as we know even Yusuf's herculean efforts are likely to prove ineffectual.

Karen Martínez is riveting in the role.

Running a tight 84 minutes, the film still feels like an epic journey into both its seedy world and its heroine’s psyche.

If it loses something in terms of definitive events, it gains a more poetic fluidity from the approach.

Slow to build and with an assembly of characters who are all more complex than they seem on the surface, Drive My Car exemplifies Japan’s growing body of literary cinema.

While it's hard to say that Fabricius's film is completely fresh, it is undoubtedly up-to-date and effective.

There's an odd dynamic to this animation in that the visually stunning imagery seems to have come from an entirely more rich imagination than the rather perfunctory and, at times, borderline annoying storytelling which accompanies it.

The real and the performed run so close together that, by the end of the film, it's not entirely clear if even Tammy knows where one ends and the other starts.

By animating the whole movie, Rasmussen makes the story feel more immersive and of a whole piece.

It all has a very particular flavour. Even a new one.

Panahi and his actors shift through emotions so smoothly, you barely notice them until they have immersed you.

The simplicity of the set-up allows for a tautness, wound ever tighter by a rich score from Paulo Gallo, using slippery strings goosed by flutes, and sound design from Isaac Moreno and Mauricio López that emphasises the wildness of the setting.

Watching Alma grow closer to Tom is bittersweet – not least because she knows the danger.

The subtlety Vogt employs as a director pays off in spades as he gets as much creepy mileage from the disturbance of soil and water as any amount of CGI could muster.

The closer and more personal this documentary gets, the more it opens up to the largest of issues.

It disappoints a bit on the monster front and it’s extremely uneven, with a dose of political satire that’s too broad for most adults and will bore most kids, but when it hits the mark, younger viewers will love it.

Bolognesi achieves a bracing hybrid that changes the usual dynamic between documentary viewer and subject.

There are scores of interviewed figures, all sorts of tall tales, but the line between biography and hagiography can be a slim one.

Erdogdu has something serious to say but never takes himself too seriously in the process.

At first glance, one can feel the enormous amount of work, heart and effort put into the completion of this epic animation.

The Mino brothers are at their best in the film's smaller moments, the early domesticity of a family celebration or a shared piece of good fortune with co-workers handled with a welcome naturalism.

For all the talk of hermetical storytelling, this might be his least hermetic and most approachable movie to date.

As a personal and political masterpiece, Mephisto has few challengers.

Plays out as a not entirely satisfying mix of film history and a particularly melancholic episode of Who Do You Think You Are?

The setting has an immediacy, we've all been in one of these stations late at night, with its flickering lights and eerie stillness.

A unique piece of cinema which delivers more than its share of surprises.

Milena Smit is a relative newcomer. This is only her second feature and she has real presence.

Audiard captures the fluid nature of relationships for a younger generation navigating both on and offline opportunities and, because this is French, it also features plenty of gracefully worked sexual encounters.

The autumn setting fits it perfectly, because although this is the change of the year as things die back for winter, it is also blazing with colour and hopefulness.

One aspect that really lands as a parallel with the current pandemic is the uncertainty of it all.

In the absence of script and character development he relies on things like the heavy use of a blue filter and the increasing volume of Handel's Sarabande form Suite No4 in D Minor in a bid to shore up the mood.

This is the playground as a warzone, where the sandpit might, indeed, be as deep as the sea and hold dead bodies and where adult authority might only make things worse.

Everything has been meticulously researched from the garish costumes and outlandish make-up to the mechanics of the business.

Calling it a plain melodrama would be reductive for such a thrilling piece of cinema.

Fennell explores the lasting effects of traumatic events with care, never making light of the situation even amid moments of comedy.

The grooming of Strawberry may have some moments of levity but that, in many ways, makes it all the more uncomfortable.

It’s hard to say which is worse: the plot additions that amount to self-parody or the stilted pacing.

Vildziunas' film never slackens in its imagination but it becomes increasingly self-indulgent as things progress.

Wright doesn't try to reinvent the documentary form, but draws on the Maels' energy, matching their playfulness and incorporating both stop-motion and a decoupage styles of animation into their back story.

Čadež employs the gouts of smoke to disturbing effect, fogging up the action and making passive aggression feel like a punch.

Filmed without commentary and with a poetic grace.

Right from the outset, this film zeroes in on Tina's natural charisma.

What could be silly in other hands, such as gnomic suggestions that "the river gose in circles here, generates a strange unease here, as Olte explores the psychological tricks a mind can play on itself.

With characters coming and going continually, the film is wildly uneven in tone, sometimes broadly comic, sometimes painfully dark. In many ways this suits its efforts to address the chaotic nature of life.

All the while, Yuryev keeps us married to Leshka's experience, even flipping us over to view the world in the same topsy-turvy way he does.

Digression builds upon detour, which piles charmingly onto excursion, sometimes lifted, sometimes pushed and always shaped by a score that also roams freely in its influences.

Underscoring this film are potent themes about masculinity, identity and self-expression. There is also a fair bit of action, and not just of the mountain adventure variety.