Glasgow Film Festival — A–Z of films

Director Karen Knox plays with the tropes of romantic comedy in this different kind of dating game

Few music documentaries get as close to the mechanics of interactive creative processes as this, and few enjoy such candid input from their subjects.

The film’s fast flowing current carries a number of character messages we can fish out, as if they were polished by the stream, all shiny and specific.

More than half the runtime is spent with groups of men sitting around having boring conversations which provide little exposition and tell us nothing about their characters.

Little details like sipping rather than drinking whole mouthfuls, or marking bottles to keep track of how much one has consumed, are so familiar to the characters that viewers too will quickly start taking them for granted.

Writer/director Mehdi Hosseinivand knows when to dial back on the big eyes and the soft golden light to remind us that this isn’t a quaint fantasy, it’s a picture of millions of children’s real day to day lives.

This is a delight. From me it drew outpourings of laughter as sharp and as bright as the splashes of blood from a punctured neck.

Directing with confidence and misdirecting with grace, Paxton draws us into a world where the absence of apparent solutions becomes compelling in itself.

The interplay of the spiritual and the sensual is vital here.

Running alongside the film's more elegiac sweep is a cut-glass wit.

The film unfolds at an easy pace, Hansen-Løve making everything matter of fact and yet beguiling, thereby softening viewers up to accept the fantastic or surreal aspects of the narrative as normal.

There’s a dryness to this comedic drama which occasionally makes it drag, but Omerzu breaks with it to great effect in places, when he’s ready to present contrasting scenes of highly emotive, character-driven drama.

Co-directors Robert Coe and Warwick Ross use their simple premise to explore wider subjects.

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.

Chitu gives a quietly dignified performance, gradually letting us see Irina’s strength through her resilience.

The actors make grieving palpable, as sure and solid as the colours caught by Ivan Gierasinchuk.

Although the heartfelt nature of the film is evident, it's a shame Ayouch became so wedded to its documentary element when its more stylised moments are where it finds its real energy.

It’s astonishing to realise that this is Reis’ first screen role.

Familiar tropes create a certain level of comfort in a horror audience and Muldowney uses that to create a false sense of control.

This is a considered film, a triumph, there are few like it and more's the pity.

Many filmmakers would be happy to have this as their crowning glory; considered as a debut it’s little short of astonishing.

Dreaming Walls is less a documentary than an attempt at a sense memory.

Sir Sean's blend of masculine charm and cold professionalism make him the perfect 007.

François Ozon makes what could have been an impossibly painful subject more palatable but nonetheless affecting.

Jah is superb.

The reflections and insights are many.

The Zürchers carefully construct their web of relationships, showing how a small vibration somewhere can lead to unexpected consequences elsewhere.

Jenna Cato Bass’ tight, unnerving thriller creates a landscape of small signals.

There's a straightforwardness to the telling of this tale that adds to its accessibility.

Diwan lets the cold hard facts trickle in as weeks are marked off at the bottom of the screen.

MacKenzie scores her film with traditional highland melodies, but often there is nothing to be heard beyond nature’s soundscape, wind over water and through trees.

It's not an easy watch, but it is a good one.

Writer/director Basholli directs with a deceptively simple handheld aesthetic, emphasising the bleak reality of the setting.

This is a tragedy at any level. There's not just the siege but the associated mentality, a mixture of recursion, remorse, and regret.

This is a house where children’s rules hold sway.

Although the film has a heartfelt sweep, it is so tightly focused that questions go unanswered.

Julia is a film about food and about the change in attitude towards cooking one woman could spark.

This film bears strange and delightful fruit without affecting its sweetness, its surprise.

What remains true now, as it was then, is the scale and scope of the thing.

The various accidents which befall these characters on the mountain are scary enough at a dramatic level. Take a step back from that and you’ll realise that you’re watching people do a lot of it for real.

With memorable characters, skilled acting and great comic timing, this film is entertaining throughout.

Not only are there goldfish emblems absolutely everywhere, but the lives of fish and humans sometimes blur.

The juxtaposition of showing a woman who so carefully and artfully constructs every aspect of her life with the totally natural performances of the children, especially little Ninon, adds great dimension.

A compelling conspiracy thriller, one that still holds a visceral power 60 years after release

The film doesn’t leave much room for hope, but it does present viewers with a shifting moral landscape in which motivations are tricky to pin down.

An astonishing arrival.

The whole film hinges on Ricci’s performance and as such it provides a means for her to demonstrate that she’s still got what it takes.

This is impressionistic filmmaking and the young director handles it with extraordinary confidence.

With darker themes filtered through the turmoil of adolescence, Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic’s début feature mingles picture postcard imagery with scenes of fish being hacked to pieces, blood and guts part of the day to day order of life.

McLeod teases out the tale as we see how much of this has exited the realm of fact and entered the realm of collective myth and storytelling in the years that have passed.

Addressing the occult through online communication is a wonderful way to explore a form of horror focused on the exchange of ideas.

Jones has been turning in consistently good work for years now and it’s high time he had a role like this. The art of it lies in how he keeps us alert to his character’s dangerous potential without ever letting us lose sight of his humanity.

Lanners has a surprising amount of unexpected turns of events up his sleeve considering the remote setting, although none of them feel unbelievable.

Nicholas Bruckman's film follows Ady long enough that we see not just the impact upon him but the changes wrought in those around him.

This is a stunning first feature.

The first-time director shows an adept grip when it comes to the rhythms of her craft, letting silence or specific sounds break out at unexpected moments, including a gripping scene when all we can hear is the spring and creak of the uneven bars.

A film which will remind its viewers why they fell in love with cinema in the first place.

The Outfit isn't doing anything new, but it does it all incredibly well.

By delving into fiction, Huezo is able to focus on the impact of this crisis on individual human lives.

Everywhere are rules that are absolute unless they aren't.

One of the most satisfying viewing experiences of the year to date.

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

It’s beautiful, compelling, helping us to grasp how people become addicted to this.

The young director not only manages to create a convincing critique of the bourgeoisie in general, but also points out more local, Polish problems.

Foïs is perfectly cast in the sort of villain role that’s rare these days, clearly relishing the viciousness of it.

At last, a children's film that is fun!

We’re all so used to seeing onscreen twins played by the same actor that there’s something disconcerting about seeing them played by two, especially in a film so concerned with the blurring of identities.

Laverty's script is so bare of sentiment, it hurts.

The stories might notionally pull together but these feel like a pile of sticks rather than a cohesive nest, a jigsaw that's middling and without edge.

When Martin demonstrates his talent he is celebrated, but what Sandahl is interested in is the weight of all this other experience which fans don’t normally see.

The film is neither preachy, nor sentimental. It is about tolerance and truth and how the two cannot live together without hope.

Shot in square format, the film keeps us close, closed-in, forcing viewers into the same overwhelming intimacy that Kate is experiencing.

The most restrained and yet audacious, unadorned and still intelligent picture the Argentinian auteur has made.

Across the whole of the film, Askew strikes a good balance between historical analysis, political polemic and human interest, drawing out the characters of his interviewees.

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.

Bakalova, who will be familiar to many English-speaking viewers from her multi-award winning turn in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, shows great depth here in a performance which is equally deserving of notice.

There is a lingering, half blossomed melancholy that lies underneath the often very funny, fast-paced moments of quotidian chaos.

All this may sound like fun, and it does have its moments, but the ebullience which animated the original is missing.

There’s a lot going on here but first time feature director Kate Dolan weaves all her narrative threads together seamlessly.

Kandini isn’t interested in stories about cruel, powerful men and helpless girls, or girls who are desperate to devote themselves to some other passion. Everybody here is complicated and insecure on some level.

Pourfaraj is superb in the lead, his Massoud stiff-backed, primly moustached, yet achingly human.