Edinburgh International Film Festival — A–Z of films

Richard Jobson's debut is full of abiding images that linger long after the final credits.

A thoroughly enjoyable exploration of family life, without mum, and neatly encapsulates an era.

Without wanting to sound like the marketing director for Cliché City, the film is heartwarming, life enhancing and full of love.

There is an air of worthiness hanging over this film, like a fug.

The performances are finely nuanced, capturing the complexities of real life individuals and avoiding caricature.

The animation is inspired, the script hilarious.

Hugely imaginative.

Robert Kechichian manages to build a keen sense of this darkness and tension.

Everything about this film is a surprise.

A confident, assured and mature handling of the coming of age story.

the subject matter is powerful, although the relationship between the young daughter of a Kurdish rebel and her army officer captor/husband/torturer could have been explored in more depth.

This is a simple tale, carrying simple messages.

If it weren't for the fact that A Boy's Life is set in the bedrock of white trash Mississippi, this would be no more than an extended social services report.

Graff has created a unique piece of work that will, eventually, receive its standing ovation.

A horrifying, endearing, contradictory, moving masterpiece.

Though none of the young leads play a particularly personable character, it is a testament to the overall quality of the piece - writing, direction and performances alike - that one nevertheless feels for them.

By erasing the difficult stuff and concentrating on the triumphs, Schickel lets his audience down.

Twentysomething French director Jerome Bonnell displays incredible maturity beyond his years.

Shot entirely digitally, King manages to use the medium perfectly, adding to the feeling of suburban seediness and heightening a sense of alienation.

As it would have probably taken another 30 hours to prise out more substantial detail from the man, you have to give Stone credit where it is due.

The Cremaster films are works of art in the sense that the critical faculties you use whilst watching them are ones you might more normally use in, say, the Tate Modern, than in an art house cinema.

Unobtrusive direction, naturalistic performances and humanist sentiment are de rigeur, along with sequences of guys driving around, as well as, more often than not, impenetrable night-for-night visuals.

Chris Shepherd... reflects history's distorted mirror particularly well.

Demme and LaGravenese have done a decent job in documenting what is undoubtedly the most important era in modern US cinema.

The most successful part of the film is its simplicity.

There is barely five minutes worth of things to say in this seemingly never-ending twaddle.

That the director has a talent for producing an unsettling mood is apparent from the outset.

The decision to concentrate on the music is both a blessing and a curse.

The script remains true to itself and does not fall back on sentimentality, although there is no running plot, rather a series of incidents.

Fraught and anxious, yet enigmatic, Turturro's performance is beautifully understated.

Even the high quality of acting fails to inject any sense into the proceedings.

Sadly, there are no barfights, bank robberies or jailbreaks in this 'un.

A great film made on a minuscule budget.

Vital, if unpleasant, viewing.

Owen is fine when looking moody, but not so good when given dialogue - it seems too staged, too deliberate.

The treatment of the subject matter is deeply irresponsible.

The story is sillier than any animation since Jem & The Holograms, but is perfectly crafted to mix with Daft Punk's music.

Pineyro uses careful signposting and symbolism as part of a greater statement of this turbulent time in Argentina's history.

A disturbing, exquisitely constructed short animated film.

Despite a strong performance from Larisa Kalpokaite, all sad eyes and glossy brown hair, it is difficult to become emotionally involved in the plot.

There is something about the purity and simplicity of a film like Ali Reza-Amni's Letters on the Wind that overwhelms me.

Writer/director Lisa Cholodenko dispenses with cliche in favour of genuine characterisation and her script is a paragon of understatement.

The story is tragic, the writing wonderful and the narration sensitively read.

Each scene seems to be played out a bit too much: not languid, but interminable.

The killings are too abundant, with no emotion or drama attached.

Penn is powerful; Bacon is sharp; Robbins is troubled; Fishburne is alert. Having them here is a privilege and a pleasure

What makes My Architect different from art docs that rely on talking heads, gallery discourses and dodgy memories is the personal touch.

Drab and strangely unfocused.

The less said about this dishevelled misogynistic piece of detritus the better.

Another assured debut from a small country of fine rebellious filmmakers.

The only real surprise is that the story follows such a predictable pattern. Some might call this tragedy; I call it lazy.

Smart, time-compressing cuts, with long close-ups and severe editing, produce a fast-moving film.

Kramer has made an imaginative, entertaining, personal and wonderfully positive film.

As a portrait of Babylon, before Aids and the Nineties doused its fire, Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato's film captures the mood of decadence unchained

The camera is an inquisitive eye and the actors respond to this mime show with admirable seriousness.

It's stylish stuff, professionally put together in a post-Taggart way, with a brooding score by Mike Hewer. Man-on-the-edge Stephen Moyer does intensity well and looks lovely naked.

The Plot has the authentic looking website, but it's authenticity of the most banal kind, a tie-in that both fails to illuminate the parent film, or provide entertainment of its own.

A distinctive, yet enigmatic, film.

This is one to watch and enjoy.

The combination of subtlety and indeterminacy makes for an uncanny treat.

It's hard to know exactly where the humour is heading, which is refreshing, but when it hits the high notes, it's both quirky and delivered with razor precision.

Jancso's masterful direction keeps you enthralled.

The biggest problem with Returner is that no amount of visual pyrotechnics... can conceal the filmmakers utter lack of imagination.

As we progress, it becomes apparent how skilfully director/co-writer Mama Keita has juxtaposed flashbacks to Alfa's life in France with his ongoing African journey of self-discovery.

Vincent Hunter's film is as unrelenting and tough as the true meaning of loneliness.

Uninvolving unless one has a interest in and knowledge of Haitian history and culture.

Like the singers, this film has bags of energy.

A terrifying tale.

Slight but sweet.

This is a fine film, well acted and the ever-changing complex relationship between the characters is cleverly played out.

The film is full of fine performances, but 90-year-old Esther Gorintin, as Eka, is quite outstanding.

The film ambles along in unconnected segments towards an ending which is already inevitable 15 minutes in.

This is a deftly packaged film, with a deeply satisfying pay off.

Aisling Walsh's film is a cry from the wilderness, which in the past would have fallen on deaf ears.

This documentary is an unsentimental portrayal of a time experienced and cherished by a community at odds with a senseless vision of the world.

It's a bold move, but it doesn't gel properly.

Slovenian punk rocker director, Damjan Kozole has opted for gritty realism at a time when issues of immigration are tight on everyone's lips.

The power of this film rests on perfect performances... no sentimentalism is allowed to enter into them, yet both demonstrate a complexity which goes far beyond what their few lines can express.

If looks could kill, the audience would be dead.

An exceptional performance from Venu.

The soundtrack fits the energy and imagination of the visuals perfectly.

It's hard to watch the dated hairdos and ugly early Eighties fashion and side with these kids.

The message is clear enough: the class barrier breaks down when everyone is on their knees in a flower bed.

For all the care and attention, Hernandez has lavished on his creation there is one inescapable problem: the film is not that interesting, nor involving.

Just another poncy art movie with a zillion pointless scenes and an editor who doesn't understand that his job is to cut out the empty bits.

Defined by an excellent performance from Antonella Costa, as the headstrong Paula.

The narrative is difficult to follow at times.

Though competently made and performed, this Taiwanese film fails to establish a coherent identity and tone of its own

In the neo-realistic style of handheld cameras and grainy colour, the film is more honest than entertaining.

While the films of The Trilogy can certainly be enjoyed on their own, the viewer's overall appreciation of them - and scale of Belvaux's vision - grows exponentionally when they are viewed in their totality.

Suffers from its dark obsessions.

It treads a fine line between the serious and the comic.

An acceptable popcorn-munching no-brainer.

A self-important, prosaic and ill-defined artistic tableau.

A beautiful, sensual film that offers a new take on that oldest of clichés, the one-night stand.

A beautifully realised memoir of a remarkable man.

A slight, but enjoyable tale.

Paul Morrison's film recreates the subversive undercurrents of suspicion within a white working-class community extremely well, in addition to celebrating the dignity and perseverance of the new immigrants.

Reality takes a back seat in this oddball comedy.

There are hints of a plot line, but everything is racing along at such a pace - only lit by the flash of muzzles - that it is difficult to spot it.

Emotion stains the walls of this period film like gutter waste.