Reviews by Edin Custo

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  No Paradise If You Are Killed By A Woman (2026)

  Review preview for No Paradise If You Are Killed By A Woman

  The 40-something director is sensible enough not to sensationalise

  A Kurdish female sniper, has survived war but when she learns the younger sister she believed was dead may still be alive in Mosul, she returns on a rescue mission that forces her to confront the trauma of her past.
• 
  Children Of The Monkey (2026)

  Review preview for Children Of The Monkey

  This boys’ club doesn’t offer anything new in the way of insight.

  Dario is the father of a child with a disability, to whom he devotes all his care and attention, and shares a close bond with his teenage nephew. As their relationship grows increasingly intense, he begins to see in the boy the son he had always wished for...
• 
  House Of The Wind (2026)

  Review preview for House Of The Wind

  Ultimately, it is the universality of a diasporic child judging an older parent’s decisions through the distorting lens of distance, age and solitude that will resonate with many.

  Josette (80) lives alone in Yaoundé, Cameroon. All her children have left for the West. She encourages them to build houses in Cameroon, a ploy to bring them back to her. But the unexpected bond she forms with Sarah, a young woman from her neighborhood, shatters everything she has built her life on: her family, her responsibilities, and her hopes.
• 
  I Plant My Hand In The Garden (2026)

  Review preview for I Plant My Hand In The Garden

  The docufictional construction can become meditative to the point of meandering, a tug-of-war between autobiography and fiction that sometimes weighs down the story.

  A pregnant Iranian woman and a Serbian man longing for fatherhood, both bisexual and living in Germany, marry. Their families, divided by language yet united by affection, come together to celebrate.
• 
  La Gradiva (2026)

  Review preview for La Gradiva

  Pompeii becomes a place where fantasy is tested against historical violence, and where looking too closely can break the story one came to preserve.

  A group of French high-school students travel to Naples on a school trip to discover the ruins of Pompeii and the bodies petrified by Vesuvius. There, they are drawn into a dizzying descent.
• 
  Montreal, My Beautiful (2025)

  Review preview for Montreal, My Beautiful

  Desire does not arrive here as a clean break from domestic life. It appears as a tremor inside it.

  Feng Xia lives a life of dutiful servitude to her husband, children and community of Chinese ex-pats. When she finally decides to put herself first, and explore the sexuality that she has long concealed, she meets the free-spirited Camille.
• 
  Disclosure Day (2026)

  Review preview for Disclosure Day

  Perhaps it is gauche to call a director approaching 80 naïve, but that is the sentiment that lingers as Disclosure Day itself unfolds.

  Alien adventure thriller.
• 
  Backrooms (2026)

  Review preview for Backrooms

  Its images are often chilling. Its spaces have a genuine charge. But the plot often feels less like cinema than like a sequence of cutscenes from a video game with the gameplay removed.

  A strange doorway appears in the basement of a furniture showroom.
• 
  Minotaur (2026)

  Review preview for Minotaur

  Zvyagintsev handles this material with his familiar control: psychological realism, cold visual restraint and an aversion to overt flourish.

  A high-powered executive's meticulously controlled existence begins to unravel.
• 
  Fjord (2026)

  Review preview for Fjord

  Mungiu’s eye moves between the juggernaut and the barely visible.

  Mihai and Lisbet Gheorghiu, a devout Romanian Norwegian couple, move from Romania to Norway with their children to be closer to Lisbet’s family. But tension mounts when one of the children arrives at school with bruises.
• 
  All Of A Sudden (2026)

  Review preview for All Of A Sudden

  Hamaguchi’s most pointed provocation is not that the nursing home becomes excessive in its care, but that ordinary neglect has trained us to see basic tenderness as excess.

  The director of a nursing home in Paris has an encounter with a terminally ill Japanese playwright that transforms her life.
• 
  We Are Aliens (2026)

  Review preview for We Are Aliens

  Small movements – the awkwardness of a child shrinking into himself, the hesitation before speaking, the forced confidence of fitting in – gain an almost painful realism.

  The story follows Tsubasa, a quiet boy, and Akitarō, a child prodigy. Jealousy and misunderstanding sever their childhood bond. Years later, as their lives take different directions, each must make a decision when the weight of the past resurfaces.
• 
  Raging (2025)

  Review preview for Raging

  Theo Lozada’s cinematography is crucial to the drama’s effect.

  A young man who witnesses a mysterious plane crash begins to confront his own trauma.
• 
  3670 (2025)

  Review preview for 3670

  3670 is particularly perceptive about the tragedy of not having one’s own native marginalised community.

  Cheol-jun has become close friends with many people, but he conceals the fact that he is gay from them. Contending with feelings of isolation and longing for deeper connection, he summons up the courage to explore Seoul's vibrant gay community.
• 
  From Dawn To Dawn (2026)

  Review preview for From Dawn To Dawn

  Chen narrates the piece herself, and that voice is crucial. She has the instincts of a poet and the discipline of a storyteller

  Observes a man torn between criminal heritage, familial duty and a search for moral clarity.
• 
  The Devil Wears Prada 2 (2026)

  Review preview for The Devil Wears Prada 2

  What made the original feel like a breath of fresh air makes the sequel feel like just another entry in a crowded field of contemporary institutional satires

  Miranda Priestly tries to deal with the decline of print journalism.
• 
  We Are Stardust (2026)

  Review preview for We Are Stardust

  Rasmussen understands that what makes this quest cinematic is not merely its oddity, but its scale.

  Story of a hobby scientist who believed it was possible to find stardust in unlikely places on Earth.
• 
  What Will I Become? (2026)

  Review preview for What Will I Become?

  It does not explain trans pain from the outside. It sits with it, listens to it, and tries to make room for it without exploiting it.

  Kyler Prescott and Blake Brockington were just two high-profile examples of approximately 50% of trans boys in the US who did not survive a suicide attempt. This film highlights the importance of combating prejudice and prioritising prevention among trans youth.
• 
  Lunar Sway (2026)

  Review preview for Lunar Sway

  The kind of film that seems to drift rather than move in straight lines, guided by intuition, memory and the pull of recurring images.

  In this offbeat comedy, a bi guy in a desert town receives a surprise visit from his con-artist birth mother, with chaos ensuing.
• 
  Hunky Jesus (2025)

  Review preview for Hunky Jesus

  Through archival material and present-day interviews, Kroot traces how the Sisters became a crucial presence in San Francisco, particularly during the AIDS epidemic, when joy, care, protest, and mutual aid were matters of survival rather than branding.

  The story of the wildly popular, annual Easter Sunday tradition in San Francisco known as Hunky Jesus.
• 
  The Devil Is Busy (2024)

  Review preview for The Devil Is Busy

  The title lands most forcefully in the spectacle of idle men who have made harassment their calling.

  Documentary shot over a single day in a women's health clinic in Atlanta.
• 
  Children No More: Were And Are Gone

  Review preview for Children No More: Were And Are Gone

  Enters a morally fraught space with admirable clarity

  Documentary follows Israeli silent vigil protests over the war in Gaza.
• 
  Come See Me In The Good Light (2025)

  Review preview for Come See Me In The Good Light

  Gibson’s modesty about language is among the film’s most moving qualities

  Two poets, one incurable cancer diagnosis. Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley go on an unexpectedly funny and poignant journey through love, life, and mortality.
• 
  Jaripeo (2026)

  Review preview for Jaripeo

  The documentary is attentive to contradiction without flattening its subjects into symbols.

  A journey to Michoacán’s hypermasculine rodeos descends into the subconscious of memory, queer desire, and longing, leading to a reckoning with the wounds and beauty of a home left behind.
• 
  Barbara Forever (2026)

  Review preview for Barbara Forever

  What emerges over the course of O’Connor’s feature is not a saintly monument but a vibrant, difficult, funny, and unsentimental person.

  An archive-driven exploration of the life, work, and legacy of iconic, pioneering lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer.
• 
  Narciso (2026)

  Review preview for Narciso

  What makes Narciso striking is the way it acquires a contemporary charge without insisting on it.

  Paraguay, 1958. The charismatic Narciso returns from Buenos Aires with rock ’n’ roll in his veins. Under the suffocating military regime, he becomes a music sensation and a symbol of freedom. But then, after his final show, he is found dead…
• 
  Where To? (2026)

  Review preview for Where To?

  Where To? keeps mistaking centrist posture for moral courage.

  A middle-aged Palestinian Uber driver forms a bond with a young Israeli who becomes a regular passenger.
• 
  Gugu's World (2026)

  Review preview for Gugu's World

  Deberton keeps the camera close and attentive to micro-gestures

  Drama revolving around a little boy, with a love of football who is living with his increasingly frail gran.
• 
  Lali (2026)

  Review preview for Lali

  Lali brings a breath of fresh air by flipping the tired “monster-in-law” trope on its head

  Darkly comic tale of two people bound by an inherited union.
• 
  The River Train (2026)

  Review preview for The River Train

  The River Train lets language do what plot will not always do, it gives a child’s abstract longings a body.

  Nine-year-old Milo lives in a remote Argentinian village where he studies the Malambo, a folk dance full of bravura. He is an excellent dancer, but Milo’s only desire is to escape the countryside on a train for the Buenos Aires of his dreams.
• 
  The Education Of Jane Cumming (2026)

  Review preview for The Education Of Jane Cumming

  Heldman’s sharpest instinct is to show how a society polices intimacy by pretending it cannot see it.

  Edinburgh, 1810. Two female teachers find themselves at the centre of a scandal.
• 
  Iván & Hadoum (2026)

  Review preview for Iván & Hadoum

  Iván & Hadoum announces de la Rosa as a filmmaker with uncommon emotional precision.

  In a greenhouse in southern Spain, Iván falls in love with his newly hired co-worker, Hadoum. But his long-awaited promotion interferes with their relationship, forcing Iván to decide what kind of person he wants to be.
• 
  Yellow Letters (2026)

  Review preview for Yellow Letters

  What the narrative wants to test is the cost of principled resistance when you have a child to protect

  Life is good for Derya and Aziz, a celebrated artist couple from Turkey, until an incident at their play’s premiere. Suddenly targeted by the state and struggling to balance their ideals with life’s necessities, their marriage is pushed to a breaking point.
• 
  The Lights, They Fall (2026)

  Review preview for The Lights, They Fall

  The film keeps hinting at elsewhere, then shows how sealed his present is from it.

  Sixteen-year-old Ilay drifts through the summer on the outskirts of Berlin while a palliative nurse accompanies his ailing mother during her last days.
• 
  Bucks Harbor (2026)

  Review preview for Bucks Harbor

  The sense is not of romantic hardship, but of endurance shaped into a local language.

  The inner lives of fishermen, young and old, who work the waters in Maine.
• 
  In A Whisper (2026)

  Review preview for In A Whisper

  What follows is not a simple coming-out narrative and not a whodunit either, but an internal struggle constantly externalised through ritual and space.

  Lilia returns to Tunisia for her uncle’s funeral and reunites with a family that knows nothing about her life in Paris, especially not about the woman she loves.
• 
  The Red Hangar (2026)

  Review preview for The Red Hangar

  Shot in stark black-and-white, Luis Emilio Guzmán’s script builds its pressure through texture and restraint.

  As the military coup unfolds across the country, Captain Jorge Silva – the former head of Air Force Intelligence – is torn between duty and conscience.
• 
  Yellow Cake (2026)

  Review preview for Yellow Cake

  Yellow Cake’s clunkiest habit, exposition as explanation rather than drama.

  When radical science backfires, miners and researchers confront apocalypse.
• 
  Complaint No. 713317 (2025)

  Review preview for Complaint No. 713317

  The early scenes are sharply observed, and frequently funny. Shafiey understands how bureaucracy becomes theatre in the home.

  Retired couple Magdy and Sama just want a quiet life, which unravels when their fridge breaks down.
• 
  Home (2026)

  Review preview for Home

  Home certainly screams, sometimes with urgency, sometimes with the strain of a story still too close to its maker.

  Migration story seen through the eyes of a young girl.
• 
  La Belle Année (2026)

  Review preview for La Belle Année

  Ruffier has an instinct for atmosphere. The documentary is undeniably visually appealing, attentive to texture, light, and the expressive clutter of a family interior.

  Revisiting a teenage crush on a teacher, Angelica Ruffier embarks on a delicate journey of memory and desire.
• 
  Why Do I See You In Everything? (2026)

  Review preview for Why Do I See You In Everything?

  The ethic is visible here. It is wary, careful, never neutral, and when violence becomes overwhelming it turns toward time, toward breathing, toward gestures of care rather than spectacle.

  Two friends drift through dreams and memories, searching for tenderness amid unending cycles of violence.
• 
  Butterfly (2026)

  Review preview for Butterfly

  Ambiguity can be a strategy, but here it often reads like evasiveness.

  Two half-sisters return to Gran Canaria after their mother's death.
• 
  Earth Song (2026)

  Review preview for Earth Song

  The most suggestive work is done through sensory motifs.

  The story of Rojin, a Kurdish-Finnish doctor, who uncovers a family secret that challenges everything she thought she knew.
• 
  Far From Maine (2026)

  Review preview for Far From Maine

  A documentary that refuses the audience the comfort of taking the “right” position and being done with it.

  Haunted by the killing of his Palestinian childhood friend Aseel Asleh by Israeli police in 2000, Roy Cohen revisits their friendship through a cinematic letter addressed to Aseel.
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  One In A Million (2026)

  Review preview for One In A Million

  The most volatile, morally complicated material is treated as turbulence to pass through rather than weather to be reported.

  Filmed over 10 years, one girl’s epic journey from Syria to Germany and back again. She and her family navigate war, exile, and heartbreak in a foreign land, illuminating the complexities of the refugee experience.
• 
  Sentient (2026)

  Review preview for Sentient

  It doesn’t posture about whether primates are sentient. It treats that as the baseline fact, then asks what kind of civilisation keeps behaving as if it isn’t?

  An investigation into laboratory research on animals exposes a hidden world in which it’s not just the animals getting hurt. The story of Dr. Lisa Jones Engel, a primatologist turned animal welfare advocate, asks whether harming animals and ourselves in science’s name is justified.
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  To Hold A Mountain (2026)

  Review preview for To Hold A Mountain

  Filmed over seven seasons, the co-directors make time tactile.

  In the remote highlands of Montenegro, a shepherd mother and daughter proudly defend their ancestral mountain from the threat of becoming a NATO military training ground, stirring memories of the violence that shattered their family.
• 
  Closure (2026)

  Review preview for Closure

  The Polish director understands that the work of searching is also the work of deciding what not to show.

  After his teenage son goes missing, Daniel scours the depths of the Vistula River, torn between the dread of a fatal leap and the hope that his son may still be alive.
• 
  Kokuho (2025)

  Review preview for Kokuho

  The performances are thrilling, emotionally direct and physically exacting, but they function as narrative instruments too.

  A boy born into a family of gangsgters is taken in by a kabuki theatre actor and finds a talent for the craft.