Bradford International Film Festival

Latest reviews

• 
  In The City Of Sylvia

  Review preview for In The City Of Sylvia

  You feel your will to live give a whimper, make its excuses and start heading for the bar.

  A boy dreams of finding a lost love.
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  Lars And The Real Girl

  Review preview for Lars And The Real Girl

  Every performance in it is perfect.

  A quiet young man falls in love with a woman who is perfect in every way - except that she's inflatable.
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  Diary Of The Dead

  Review preview for Diary Of The Dead

  Romero has started all over again as though his other films exist in some parallel universe. Just to prove anything a younger director can do, he can do better, the whole thing is shot cinema-vérité style.

  Film students try to record the end of civilisation as they know it when the dead begin to walk. Plus read our exclusive interview with George A Romero.
• 
  Joy Division

  Review preview for Joy Division

  The soundtrack is, of course, superb, and the television appearances and bootleg live videos testify to how charismatic Joy Division were as live performers.

  An in-depth biographical account of the legendary Manchester band.
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  War, Love, God & Madness

  Review preview for War, Love, God & Madness

  A staggering and petrifying insight into the very real dangers faced by Al-Daradji and his crew.

  A disturbing journey into Iraq, documenting the making of Ahlaam.
• 
  Redacted

  Review preview for Redacted

  Unlike most of the films about Iraq, Redacted portrays a military that’s a catchall for the uneducated and unsocialised; and while many may find this offensive, it’s perfectly in line with the draft-deferring lowering of recruitment standards.

  Controversial story, asking where, in the censored war in Iraq, do we find the truth? Plus read what Brian De Palma said about the film - and the redaction of it, here.
• 
  You, The Living

  Review preview for You, The Living

  If Andersson is good at using the visual to create links, then he accompanies this with a strong aural sense.

  Surreal, dreamlike, and darkly comic sketches about life and death.
• 
  The Cottage

  Review preview for The Cottage

  Taken as a straightforward comic horror movie, this feels too derivative and clichéd. Taken as homage or pastiche, it's not nearly funny, knowing or camp enough.

  When wannabe big-time crooks kidnap a gangster's daughter and hole up in a remote cottage, they find there are scarier people out there than the mob.
• 
  Four Minutes

  Review preview for Four Minutes

  This is a brilliant work, capable of speaking to a variety of audiences.

  A young prisoner receives piano lessons which change her life.
• 
  Garage

  Review preview for Garage

  Garage is one of the most depressing films I have seen in a long time, a scathing indictment of the way we treat the mentally subnormal, but it's enlivened by its own brand of dark humour.

  The life of a lonely petrol station attendant is changed forever when he is befriended by a bored teenager.

A–Z of Bradford International Film Festival 2008 reviews →

Features

• Mohamed Al-Daradji on shooting after the war
  The director of Ahlaam and accompanying documentary War, Love, God & Madness talks about the experience of directing a film in modern-day Iraq.
• Plight of the living dead
  As Diary Of The Dead is released on DVD read our exclusive interview with George A Romero about zombies, the perils of the internet and a Sound Of Music remake.
• How music changed history
  John Sayles on Honeydripper.
• Fresh cut of the blade
  How Ridley Scott's sci-fi classic came to be sliced so many different ways.