by Sarah Manvel The first Muslim International Film Festival, an innovative new addition to the global festival calendar, had its press launch yesterday. It will run from the 30 May to 2 June in central London and is allegedly the first film festival in Europe to focus on movies made in and/or by the Muslim world. It will consist of two programmes of short films … Continue reading Muslim International Film Festival Launches in London
Year:2024 Runtime: 122 minutes Directed by: Sam Taylor-Johnson Written by: Matt Greenhalgh Starring: Jack O’Connell, Marisa Abela, Lesley Manville, Eddie Marsan, Bronson Webb, Juliet Cowan By Sarah Manvel In 2009 writer Matt Greenhalgh and director Sam Taylor-Johnson collaborated on “Nowhere Boy,” which was about how John Lennon the young man became John Lennon the Beatle. Now in 2024 writer Matt Greenhalgh and director Sam Taylor-Johnson … Continue reading Review: Back to Black
Year: 2024 Runtime: 110 minutes Writer/ Director: Kat Rohrer Actors: Proschat Madani, Caroline Peters, Heikko Deutschmann, Gohat Nurbachsch, Barbara Spitz, Allegra Tinnefeld, Nicole Ansari-Cox, Anton Noori By Sarah Manvel “What a Feeling” is a midlife crisis movie that doesn’t take itself seriously. It is also an immigrant love story set in Vienna, and only after that is it a gay film – not a welder … Continue reading BFI Flare 2024: What a Feeling
Runtime: 83 minutes Directed by: Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu Written by: Maddie Dai Starring: Erana James, Manaia Hall, Rima Te Wiata, Nathalie Morris By Sarah Manvel “We Were Dangerous” is a pleasing fantasy movie about three girls – two in their late and one in their early teens – who finds themselves trapped in an unpleasant situation designed to break their spirits. Other movies on this … Continue reading BFI Flare 2024 review: We Were Dangerous
Year: 2023 Runtime: 81 minutes Writer/Director: Noah Schamus Actors: Bobbi Salvör Menuez, Marianne Rendón, Mila Myles, Yaron Lotan By Sarah Manvel What is it about contemporary American culture that keeps people in a state of arrested development? It seems like the external milestones that represent “success” — an impressive career, home ownership, and committed relationships — have become the things which create emotional maturity instead … Continue reading BFI Flare 2024 review: Summer Solstice
Year: 2024 Directed by: Dominic Savage Written by: Elliot Page and Dominic Savage Starring: Elliot Page, Peter Outerbridge, Hillary Baack, Wendy Crewson, Andrew Bushell, David Reale By Sarah Manvel Quentin Crisp was a ground-breaking homosexual and a gay icon who found success as a raconteur of his unusual life experiences, including an unusual for-the-time openness about his sexuality and sex life. But despite making a … Continue reading BFI Flare 2024 review: Close to You
Year: 2024 Runtime: 147 minutes Directed by: Agnieszka Holland Written by: Maciej Pisuk, Gabriela Łazarkiewicz, Agnieszka Holland Starring: Jalal Altawil, Dalia Naous, Taim Ajjan, Talia Ajjan, Al Rashi Mohamad, Behi Djanati Atai, Tomasz Włosok, Joely Mbundu, Malwina Buss, Monika Frajczyk, Jasmina Polak, Maja Ostaszewska, Maciej Stuhr By Sarah Manvel On first assumptions, a black-and-white movie featuring multiple sequences of terrified people being forced to run … Continue reading GFF2024 review: Green Border / Zielona Granica
Year: 2024 Runtime: 84 minutes Written and directed by: Selman Nacar Starring: Tülin Özen, Gulcin Kultur Sahin, Ogulcan Arman Uslu By Sarah Manvel “Hesitation Wound” tries to have its cake and eat it. That is to say, it tries to show a criminal lawyer in a small Turkish city both as a person and a professional, but only manages to short-change her twice. Both aspects of … Continue reading GFF2024 review: Hesitation Wound / Tereddüt Çizgisi
Year: 2024 Runtime: 84 minutes Directed by: Ethan Coen Written by: Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke Starring: Margaret Qualley, Beanie Feldstein, Geraldine Viswanathan, Connie Jackson, Bill Camp, Pedro Pascal, Colman Domingo, C.J. Wilson, Joey Slotnick, Matt Damon, Miley Cyrus By Sarah Manvel Sometimes having too much money is a bad thing. If “Drive-Away Dolls” had been made by a bunch of nobodies on a shoestring … Continue reading GFF2024 review: Drive-Away Dolls
Year: 2024 Runtime: 117 minutes Directed by: Matěj Chlupáček Written by: Miro Šifra Starring: Eliška Křenková, Miloslav König, Luboš Veselý, Milan Ondrík, Richard Langdon, Ján Jackuliak By Sarah Manvel This Czech-Slovak co-production is highly unusual and not just in its marketing through-line of a woman investigating a crime in Slovakia in 1937. Its real subject is how society then and society now deals with intersex people – that … Continue reading GFF2024 review: We Have Never Been Modern / Úsvit
In Their Own League 