East End Film Festival — A–Z of films

Charm' is just one of the words, and others like 'winsome' are right there - it manages this without ever feeling forced, without ever feeling twee - and that makes it a triumph.

A fascinating, if skewed, account of creativity gone wild.

Nölle's greatest achievement is to keep the magic realist realm firmly anchored to the real so that reality feels touched by imagination rather than smothered by it.

Its plot is more cleverly structured than is at first apparent, and although it seems to lose its way part way through, there's always something going on upstairs.

After all, what’s so sinister about reading Aesop’s Fables? Everything and nothing, Corbet suggests.

The disjuncture between sound and image where humans are concerned is suggestive of the workers being integrated into - or becoming interchangeable with - the workings of the ship.

The symbolism in Fire At Sea is so organic that it might dawn on you hours or days after seeing the film.

The film is packed with surprise.

Everything here is sincerely meant but Gobadi struggles to make the stories fit together in any meaningful way, with the scripting paradoxically too loose for most of the film and then suddenly far too on the nose.

Two docs for the price of one? Both would have been better on their own

Oakes is careful not to make his film hagiographic. Jim is presented as restless, troubled by a sense of guilt at his advantages, and sometimes naive.

The film could be called "old fashioned" but that is rarely a bad thing.

Boatwright has done an effective job of taking a group of people often perceived as anti-social and revealing the social bonds that underlie their activity and creativity.

At the midway point, the screenplay begins to flap about all over the place but Smoczynska's firm, high-energy directing - including an extras-laden shopping centre extravaganza - doesn't stop to let you consider them for too long.

Gull has a keen eye for nature, beautifully captured by cinematographer Susanne Salavati.

Hull's reflections touch on areas the sighted rarely stop to consider, such as the way that still photos are easier to remember than actual physical moments with loved ones.

What does become difficult here is balance, in part because many of Pussy Riot's critics are so aggressive as to make their case for them.

There's often a question mark over how involved a documentarian has become with their subject and here Ghaemmaghami confronts the issue head on, showing how she becomes not just a recorder of what happens but a catalyst for change.

It may be derivative, underdeveloped and twee, but it has force of personality.