Enter a phantasmagorical kaleidoscope – a magic lantern of a film that rather than illuminate its surroundings, lights a path right into the self.

Edie is a surprising film. It sets out in an unassuming way and develops into something genuinely affecting. It tells the story of a widow in her early eighties, Edie. Edie (Sheila Hancock) quietly mourns; not her husband, who had been unkind and had…

An inventively disturbing life of the mind is camouflaged by cheerful wholesomeness in “Baby Done”, a low key comedy that flirts with big themes.

An inventively disturbing life of the mind is camouflaged by cheerful wholesomeness in “Baby Done”, a low key comedy that flirts with big themes. Zoe and Tim are partners in life and work, a young New Zealand couple in their thirties with plenty to…

A young woman becomes her own Rebecca in “Make Up”, Claire Oakley’s directorial debut, with flashforwards that push her into adulthood.

A young woman becomes her own Rebecca in “Make Up”, Claire Oakley’s directorial debut, with flashforwards that push her into adulthood. A windswept seaside caravan park on the Cornish coast settles down for winter. The site is almost empty, with just…

The paradox of Stanley and Oscar’s home, their island, Sicily, is that while its horizons – the land, sea and skies – feel limitless, the possibilities it affords its young people are precari…

The last instalment of Michele Pennetta’s Sicilian trilogy, “Il Mio Corpo”, is an affecting chamber piece that plays out under huge skies. “Il Mio Corpo” is affecting. The story at its heart and its iconography make it so, and Pennetta’s accomplished…

Sassy, lethal, and disconcerting, “Bacurau” brings a powerfully surreal twist to the story of Brazil’s cinema of resistance.

Like all the most accomplished fairy tales, Guillermo del Toro’s world of wonders, “The Shape of Water”, opens with a sense of promise, of magical things to come, and inevitably, with an undertone of darkness. Through a door ajar, the camera slips…

Russian Film Week is back and in fine form. Opening with “The Whaler Boy”, Philipp Yuryev’s Venice Days winner, the programme also features shorts, masterclasses and talks, including a conversation with Andrey Zviagintsev. In “The Whaler Boy”, a…

Nightmare on 12th Street. July 1967, a sweltering summer in Detroit. The city erupts into rebellion. Looting, arson, snipers. This discussion piece contains some spoilers. The Detroit Police Department is overwhelmed. Governor George W. Romney (yes –…

It’s over 40 years since film audiences were struck by the childlike wonder of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”.

It’s over 40 years since film audiences were struck by the childlike wonder of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. In 1977, Steven Spielberg is only just 30. He is already an experienced television director – his TV horror trucker movie “Duel” has…

This stellar adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space” marks a brilliant return for cult director Richard Stanley.

This stellar adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space” marks a brilliant return for cult director Richard Stanley. The Gardners are happily settling into a beautiful New England farmhouse surrounded by dense woods. It’s a recent…

“I am Thinking of Ending Things” is a work steeped in the uncanny which while it hints at horror, borrowing some of the genre’s tropes and cues, delivers instead only horror of a purely existential…