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East End Film Festival · 2016

East End Film Festival 2016

Competition

Programme

24 films · 9 reviews

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Adult Life Skills

Review preview for Adult Life Skills

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.

Andrew Robertson · 4 out of 5
Anna is stuck: she’s approaching 30, living in her mother’s shed, and spending her time making movies with her thumbs. Her mom wants her to move out; she just wants to be left alone.

(Country: UK; Year: 2016; Director: Rachel Tunnard; Writer: Rachel Tunnard; Stars: Jodie Whittaker, Edward Hogg, Lorraine Ashbourne, Alice Lowe, Brett Goldstein, Andrew Buckley, Christian Contreras, Eileen Davies, David Anderson, Rachael Deering, Ozzy Myers)

Full review

Aloys

Review preview for Aloys

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.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
A private investigator is drawn into a mind game by a mysterious woman.

(Country: Switzerland, France; Year: 2016; Director: Tobias Nölle; Writer: Tobias Nölle; Stars: Georg Friedrich, Tilde von Overbeck, Kamil Krejcí, Yufei Li, Koi Lee, Sebastian Krähenbühl, Karl Friedrich, Peter Zumstein, Agnes Lampkin, Rahel Hubacher, Haroldo Simao, Tobias Bienz, Aaron Hitz, Barblin Leggio-Hänseler, Benjamin Merz)

Full review

As I Open My Eyes (À peine j'ouvre les yeux)

Tunis, summer 2010, a few months before the Revolution: Farah, 18 years old, has just graduated and her family already sees her as a future doctor. But she doesn't have the same idea.

(Country: France, Belgium, Tunisia; Year: 2015; Director: Leyla Bouzid; Writer: Leyla Bouzid, Marie-Sophie Chambon; Stars: Baya Medhaffer, Ghalia Benali)

Chasing Robert Barker

A paparazzi photographer finds his past catching up with him when he's commissioned to dig up dirt on a famous actor.

(Country: UK, Iceland, Brazil; Year: 2015; Director: Daniel Florencio)

The Childhood Of A Leader

Review preview for The Childhood Of A Leader

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

Amber Wilkinson · 4.5 out of 5
Fable about the rise of fascism set in post-First World War Europe.

(Country: France; Year: 2015; Director: Brady Corbet; Writer: Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold; Stars: Robert Pattinson, Liam Cunningham, Stacy Martin, Bérénice Bejo, Caroline Boulton, Sophie Curtis, Rebecca Dayan, Luca Bercovici, Michael Epp, Jeremy Wheeler, Scott Alexander Young, Roderick Hill, Patrick McCullough, Andrew Osterreicher)

Full review See: Brady Corbet on making audiences think, Christianity and Robert Pattinson and the culture of celebrity , Brady Corbet on history repeating itself and the look and sound of The Childhood Of A Leader , Venice Festival report: Looking For Grace, The Daughter, Equals, The Childhood Of A Leader

The Darkest Universe

A tale of troubled sibling relationships, alienation and aliens.

(Country: UK; Year: 2016; Director: Tom Kingsley, Will Sharpe)

Dead Slow Ahead

Review preview for Dead Slow Ahead

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.

Rebecca Naughten · 4 out of 5
Essay film mixing documentary and more abstract explorations onboard a freight ship.

(Country: Spain, France; Year: 2015; Director: Mauro Herce; Writer: Mauro Herce, Manuel Muñoz Rivas)

Full review

Frenzy (Abluka)

A political prisoner is released from jail on the grounds that he joins an intelligence unit of garbage collectors.

(Country: France, Qatar, Turkey; Year: 2015; Director: Emin Alper; Writer: Emin Alper; Stars: Mehmet Ozgur, Berkay Ates, Tülin Özen, Müfit Kayacan, Ozan Akbaba)

Gary Numan: Android In La La Land

Documentary into the synth-pop star.

(Country: US, UK; Year: 2016; Director: Steve Read, Rob Alexander; Stars: Gary Numan)

The Guv'nor

A documentary portrait of bareknuckle boxer, bouncer, enforcer, and doorman Lenny McLean.

(Country: UK; Year: 2016; Director: Paul Van Carter)

The Hard Stop

Review preview for The Hard Stop

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

Angus Wolfe Murray · 2.5 out of 5
Documentary about the death of Mark Duggan and the difficulty of finding work for young black men in Tottenham

(Country: UK; Year: 2015; Director: George Amponsah; Writer: George Amponsah, Dionne Walker; Stars: Marcus Knox Hooke, Kurtis Henville)

Full review

Homeland (Iraq Year Zero) Part 1: Before The Fall

A portrait of everyday life as Iraq prepared for war in 2002.

(Country: Iraq, France; Year: 2015; Director: Abbas Fahdel; Writer: Abbas Fahdel)

Homeland (Iraq Year Zero) Part 2: After The Battle

A documentary about the ordinary people trying to get by day to day in Iraq in 2003, after the collapse of the state.

(Country: Iraq, France; Year: 2015; Director: Abbas Fahdel; Writer: Abbas Fahdel)

Love Is Thicker Than Water

Family loyalties are tested when a rich girl falls for a humble bike messenger.

(Country: UK; Year: 2015; Director: Emily Harris, Ate de Jong; Writer: Ate de Jong)

The Lure

Review preview for The Lure

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.

Amber Wilkinson · 3 out of 5
A pair of mermaid sisters run into trouble when one of them falls for a human.

(Country: Poland; Year: 2016; Director: Agnieszka Smoczynska; Writer: Robert Bolesto; Stars: Marta Mazurek, Michalina Olszanska, Jakub Gierszal, Kinga Preis, Andrzej Konopka, Zygmunt Malanowicz)

Full review

National Bird

Sonia Kennebeck takes on the controversial tactic of drone warfare, and demands accountability through the personal accounts—recollections, traumas, and responses—of three American military veterans whose lives have been shaken by the roles they played in this controversial method of attack.

(Country: US; Year: 2016; Director: Sonia Kennebeck)

Native

When a signal is received from the other side of the universe, Cane and Eva are dispatched to colonise a distant world.

(Country: UK, US; Year: 2016; Director: Daniel Fitzsimmons)

Notes On Blindness

Review preview for Notes On Blindness

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.

Amber Wilkinson · 4.5 out of 5
Adaptation of John Hull's audio diary about the experience of losing his sight.

(Country: UK; Year: 2014; Director: Pete Middleton, James Spinney; Writer: Pete Middleton, James Spinney; Stars: Rafe Beckley, Ellie Bindman, Anoushska Bruce, Celia Henebury, Stanley Pemberton-Warbrick, Lorelei Winterfrost)

Full review

Operation Avalanche

In 1967, four undercover CIA agents were sent to NASA posing as a documentary film crew. What they discovered led to one of the biggest conspiracies in American history.

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: Matt Johnson; Writer: Josh Boles, Matt Johnson; Stars: Sharon Belle, Matt Johnson, Krista Madison, Samantha Michelle, Owen Williams, Josh Boles, Emilie Paquet, Tom Bolton, Chris Gonsalves, Joe Anastasio, Madeleine Sims-Fewer)

A Punter's Prayer

A man who has run out of luck decides to risk everything on one bet against the odds.

(Country: UK; Year: 2015; Director: Savvas D Michael; Stars: Tommy O'Neill, Dexter Fletcher)

Sonita

Review preview for Sonita

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.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
The story of an aspirational young Afghan rapper whose family plan to sell her into marriage.

(Country: Germany, Iran, Switzerland; Year: 2016; Director: Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami)

Full review

Transit Havana

A documentary about three trans women awaiting surgery from a European specialist as part of a special medical programme of support.

(Country: Germany, Netherlands, Cuba; Year: 2016; Director: Daniel Abma)

We Are The Flesh

Review preview for We Are The Flesh

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

Jennie Kermode · 2 out of 5
Wandering through a ruined city, a young brother and sister discover a building inhabited by a mysterious hermit who offers them sanctuary.

(Country: Mexico; Year: 2016; Director: Emiliano Rocha Minter; Writer: Emiliano Rocha Minter; Stars: Noé Hernández, María Evoli, Diego Gamaliel, Gabino Rodríguez, María Cid)

Full review

Win Win

A satire about the global economic crisis follows three unscrupulous investors.

(Country: Austria; Year: 2016; Director: Daniel Hoesl)