See cinema differently
Director: Jonas Poher Rasmussen While not quite revolutionary in it's amalgamation of animation and documentary (we live in a world in which 2008's Waltz with Bashir - among others - exist), nevertheless, Jonas Poher Rasmussen's empathetic shout from the fringes rings as a necessary and beautifully crafted experiment with the possibilities of the form. The …
Director: Jeff Tremaine Stars: Johnny Knoxville, Chris Pontius, Eric André I have a wonderful group of friends. And it is a group. Couples. A few single stragglers now, after all these years. When we're together it's just comfortable. It's easy. They're The Best People. And for one reason or another - mostly one reason - …
Director: Andrea Arnold Ever since her Oscar-winning debut short Wasp back in 2003, Andrea Arnold has been using the immediacy of hand-held to carve out her stories, charting a career of generally acclaimed social realism in the UK before the last decade saw her restlessly applying her methods to other forms. A dourly gripping literary adaptation …
Director: Robert Greene An anonymous double-garage with its wide door closed. Slowly it opens, sliding up to reveal... boxes. Boxes atop boxes. As high as the ceiling, as deep as the garage goes, so it seems. These are case files. Sexual abuse case files. The Catholic church's unending connection to pedophiliac horror stories isn't funny …
Directors: Amel Alzakout, Khaled Abdulwahed Stars: Amel Alzakout While fleeing Syria by sea in 2015, the boat carrying Amel Alzakout capsized, plunging her and many other refugees into the water. Attached to her wrist, Alzakout's GoPro captured the event in full, and from a vantage point that we couldn't possibly have been afforded otherwise. Purple Sea …
Directors: Kristina Lindström, Kristian Petri With The Most Beautiful Boy in the World, Kristina Lindström and Kristian Petri attempt earnestly to make a documentary about the pitfalls of exploiting the vulnerable for the sake of making art. Yet, in the process, fall into the self-same trap. For modern audiences Björn Andresen is probably most recognisable as the …
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Director: Karim Kassem Stars: Karim Kassem, Zeinab Hind Khadra, Lyne Ramadan For a new generation of global filmmakers, the lines that separate drama and documentary have become a fertile ground for experimentation and play. One might feel cautious; that the fidelity of the truth might have become watered down after Trump and everything else. But …
Director: Gianfranco Rosi If the world is getting smaller thanks to the freer access to information and ideas, then borders have become the natural pressure points at which differing cultures and sets of values intersect. These geographical lines - which can seem somewhat arbitrary to those looking from afar - are fractal lines of tension …
Director: Patric Chiha Stars: Gisèle Vienne, Kerstin Daley-Baradel, Sylvain Decloitre The relentless, propulsive rhythms of '90s rave music, out of context, are some of the most purely irritating sounds one can encounter (ever had noisy neighbours?). So guttural and invasive, violent and ceaseless. But with rave music context is everything. It's a genre that is …
Director: Kirsten Johnson This year has seen a lot of people lose elderly relatives to the ongoing global pandemic and most families have been unable to say a traditional goodbye through funeral ceremonies. Reduced gatherings, social distancing... these things and more have been barriers at times, stopping us from communing when we most feel the …
Director: Federico Atehortúa Arteaga Arteaga initially set out to make a documentary about the origins of Colombian cinema; itself a fertile ground for exploration. In the process of doing so, however, he came to realise that the medium's tentative first steps were inherently connected to the country's history of violence and civil unrest; something that …
Director: Agnès Varda Agnès Varda died on 29 March this year at the age of 90. I've seen too few of her films: the ones offered to me by MUBI in the wake of her death... last year's charming Faces Places... her own mini-documentary on the making of partner Jacques Demy's The Young Girls Of …
Directors: Alan Elliott, Sydney Pollack Stars: Aretha Franklin, Reverend James Cleveland, Clara Ward In Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film The Shining there is a scene in which Scatman Crothers' hotel employee Dick Halloran talks to young Danny Torrance about his incredible psychic gift. In order to put it into words that the boy can understand, he likens …
Director: Beyoncé Knowles-Carter "I wanted every person who has ever been dismissed because of the way they look to feel like they were on that stage, killing 'em, killing 'em." This quote from Beyoncé, which floats through the first of Homecoming's intervals, should serve to quiet dismissals that this film is merely a concert film. It is …
Directors: Julie Cohen, Betsy West With biopic On The Basis Of Sex currently playing in cinemas, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is having something of a career victory lap at the movies. Complimenting the dramatised version of her life starring Felicity Jones (or perhaps showing it up) is this delightful documentary from Julie Cohen and …
The Lost Highway Hotel 