Film and Foreign

Cannes 2012: Amour

Deeply sad and affecting film from Michael Haneke, and winner of the 2012 Palme D’Or

28 May 2012

Unlike The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke’s Palme D’Or winning film from 2009), which stands out for its thematic and narrative complexities, Amour sees the Austrian director take a far simpler approach to filmmaking, with an intimate story of an elderly…

Cannes 2012: Holy Motors

Hugely satisfying and inventive celebration of cinema from Leos Carax

28 May 2012

Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant) is picked up by his driver Celine (Edith Scob) for a day’s work - 9 appointments that will take him across Paris and into the paths of an array of characters. If that sounds vague, it’s deliberate - to say anymore would…

Norwegian Wood

Haruki Murakami's novel is transferred to the screen by Anh Hung Tran

2 Mar 2011

(15) 133min Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami has a unique voice in contemporary fiction, both hugely imaginative and intensely intimate. But with this adaptation of one of his most popular books, French-Vietnamese filmmaker Anh Hung Tran fails to…

A Royal Affair

A skillfully delivered but coldly aloof period drama from the Swedish Dragon Tattoo team

11 May 2012

Reuniting the writing team behind the original Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, A Royal Affair is a welcome break from the current plethora of morbid Scandinavian thrillers; instead, Rasmus Heisterberg and Nikolaj Arcel have co-adapted an unfamiliar but…

North Sea Texas

Sensitive performances fail to make this predictable coming of age story engaging

18 Apr 2012

(15) 98 mins Given how difficult we’re lead to believe it is to get an independent film distributed in cinemas in the UK, you’d be forgiven for wondering why some of those that do reach our screens seem so familiar. North Sea Texas, the story of…

Jules et Jim

3 Jul 2008

French New Wave filmmaker Francois Truffaut’s third film, made in 1962, was undoubtedly his masterpiece. Set in the 1910s and 20s it is the story of a freewheeling love triangle between alpha female Catherine (Jeanne Moreau), Austrian Jules (Oskar…

She Monkeys

Impressive coming-of-age drama with frank depiction of adolescent sexuality

23 May 2012

A courageous, periodically unsettling coming-of-age tale, She Monkeys is the arresting first feature from director Lisa Aschan. It’s a Swedish production which - in its frank approach to adolescent sexuality - bears comparison with Katell Quillévéré’s…

Rendez-vous with French Cinema preview

The chance to see upcoming French films before they hit cinemas later this year

26 Mar 2012

Now that The Artist has cleaned up at the Oscars, attention can turn to other French films that will be released in the UK during 2012. The Rendez-vous with French Cinema event, which runs in London until Sat 24 Mar and at Edinburgh's Filmhouse from Fri…

Africa in Motion 2011 animation strand wins the day

Burkinabé animated film L'arbre aux esprits (Tree of Spirits)

4 Nov 2011

Animation is a small but rapidly growing genre in African cinema. L’arbre aux esprits (Tree of Spirits) is one of several animated films to be screened at Africa in Motion 2011 as part their children’s programme, taking place on Saturday. The story…

Takeshi Miike's 13 Assassins strikes a balance between measured character development and violent brutality

25 Apr 2011

(15) 126min Prolific to the point of insanity, unpredictable and blatantly controversial, Takeshi Miike is not your average Japanese filmmaker. His notorious body of work which includes loads of straight to video fare, the Dead or Alive trilogy, Ichi…

Reel Festivals: Syria and Lebanon

Films from the Middle East at this year's events include 'Every Day is a Holiday' and 'Zabad'

13 Apr 2011

The team behind 2009’s Reel Afghanistan and Reel Iraq in 2010 have decided to focus their attention on Syria and Lebanon this year. For the uninitiated, the format is simple: in an attempt to bridge cultural understanding, the festival of films…

Charles Burns - Fear(s) of the Dark

16 Oct 2008

The wildly imaginative and scary animated French portmanteau horror movie Fear(s) of the Dark was made by six European and American cartoonists working with professional animators. The most notable of those cartoonists is Charles Burns, who is a legend…

Casa de mi Padre

Will Ferrell's Spanish-language comedy is at once unfunny and too silly to take seriously

11 May 2012

Funnyman Will Ferrell as a tough rancher in a violent Spanish-language Western? It could only be a joke, and that’s exactly what Case de mi Padre is, a ragged, silly spoof in the Airplane/Naked Gun mode. Unfortunately, as jokes go, it’s a not…

New trailer for Danish comedy Klown

Filthy, funny antics that diverge from Scandinavia's current reputation for serious TV drama

10 May 2012

Every now and then, something comes along that makes you laugh, wince and sneeze coffee through your nostrils, in that order. Today, that experience comes courtesy of the trailer for Danish comedy Klown. The film follows Frank (Frank Hvam) and Casper…

Mademoiselle Chambon

Moving romantic drama from director Stéphane Brizé, starring Vincent Lindon and Sandrine Kiberlain

14 Sep 2011

(12A) 101min Mademoiselle Chambon is another bitter-sweet and elegantly orchestrated chamber drama from Stéphane Brizé, the French writer-director of Not Here to be Loved, which plays like a Gallic variation of Brief Encounter. Jean (Vincent Lindon…

Mammuth

Gerard Depardieu stars in road trip comedy

17 May 2011

(15) 92min Directors Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern have shown a talent to amuse with politically-incorrect, deadpan delights like Aaltra (2004) and Louise-Michel (still awaiting a Scottish cinema release). Mammuth offers more of the same with…

François Ozon's The Refuge

An emotionally involving lyrical tale of new beginnings

5 Aug 2010

Prolific French director François Ozon makes his best films when directly addressing life and death issues. He fillets the drama from the tender aftershocks of life-changing events like the loss of a partner in Under The Sand (Sous Le Sable), the…

Déborah François

4 Dec 2009

While still at school in her Belgian hometown, 16-year-old François attended an open casting held by the Dardenne brothers. She was chosen ahead of 150 other hopefuls in the role of a teenage mother, whose new baby is sold by her boyfriend, and the film…

Mesrine: Killer Instinct (l’Instinct de Mort)

30 Jul 2009

Tracing a line from Mesrine’s disillusioning military service during the Algerian war to the beginning of his notoriety in 1972 (when he graduated to murder), the first instalment of this epic crime tale is derivative, energetic and hugely…

Polisse

Sprawling French ensemble drama that veers between compelling and ridiculous

16 May 2012

This sprawling ensemble film, which tracks the harrowing daily routines of a Parisian Child Protection Unit, veers wildly between the compelling and the ridiculous. Scripted and directed by Maiwenn, with Emmaneulle Bercot acting as co-writer, it shifts…

The Turin Horse

Hard-going but profoundly rewarding piece of arthouse cinema from Bela Tarr

16 May 2012

This mournful fable isn’t exactly going to win a whole new crossover audience for Hungary’s master of arthouse tough love, Béla Tarr, but it’s a compelling, vividly realised addition to his unique oeuvre. As a father and daughter scrabble for a living…

The Raid

A short, tough, pumped-up flick for die-hard action fans

17 Apr 2012

(18) 101min ‘1 ruthless crime lord. 20 elite cops. 80 floors of chaos.’ The advertising sets exactly the right proficient tone; crunching the numbers as well as bones, The Raid features a small group of policemen taking on a vertically stacked army of…

Cafe de Flore

An objectionable, distasteful and ultimately pointless exercise in parallel plotting

17 Apr 2012

(tbc) 120 min In crisply-shot present-day Montreal, celebrity DJ Antoine (Kevin Parent) has recently left his wife Carole (Hélène Florent) and set up a home with their two children and his new girlfriend, Rose (Evelyne Brochu). In dull and dingy Paris…

Shinji Somai retrospective announced for Edinburgh International Film Festival 2012

PP Rider, The Catch, Typhoon Club and more to screen at EIFF 2012

11 Apr 2012

Japanese director Shinji Somai will be the subject of a major retrospective at this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival. The director, who died in 2001, is greatly admired in Japan, and is slowly starting to achieve international…

Le Havre

Aki Kaurismaki's French language debut is a grimly funny working class drama

19 Mar 2012

(PG) 93min Migrating south to shoot his latest feature in France seems to have lightened the mood of the Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismaki, whose brand of deadpan humour has previously proved to be the key in crafting a series of delightfully…

GFF 2012 - Day planner

Our highlights for each day of the Glasgow Film Festival

6 Feb 2012

It can be difficult, when any festival rolls around, to decide which events to skip in favour of others. Searching rigorously through the programme, referring back to the calendar, trying to fit in as much as possible - it's a painstaking piece of work…

The Adopted

Quirky, saccharine directorial debut from French actress Melanie Laurent

24 Jan 2012

(15) 100 mins Still only 28-years-old, French actress and musician Melanie Laurent makes her directorial debut with this offbeat family tale, which owes more to her recent performances in US indie Beginners and the sentimental melodrama The Concert…

Miss Bala

Impressive crime drama from Mexican director Gerardo Naranjo

12 Oct 2011

(15) 113min Maria Full of Grace meets Heat in this absorbing thriller from Mexican writer/director Gerardo Naranjo (I’m Gonna Explode), whose title translates as ‘Miss Bullet’. Laura (newcomer Stephanie Sigman) is a young working-class woman living…

Poetry

A deeply moving portrayal of an elderly woman's struggles in rural South Korea

21 Jul 2011

(12A) 139min The quest to write a single poem becomes a heroic act in Poetry, a poignant, intricately plotted melodrama from Secret Sunshine director Lee Chang-dong. Poetry won the Best Screenplay at Cannes but it is the central performance from…

The Last Circus

Spanish black comedy/horror takes in clowns, circus life, love and madness

20 Jun 2011

The latest film from writer/director Alex de la Iglesia is almost unclassifiable, a love story, a black comedy and horror all apply and as fans of his Accion Mutante (1992) will know it’s this glorious mess of ideas and themes that makes for such a…

The Big Picture

Romain Duris turns out an excellent performance in French drama

23 May 2011

(tbc) 114min This adaptation of Douglas Kennedy’s novel relocates the setting from New York and Montana to Paris and the Adriatic Coast. Its plot involves murder, identity theft and abandonment but this is not so much a thriller as an investigation…

Point Blank (A Bout Portant)

Director Fred Cavayé's French thriller is engaging and well-paced

23 May 2011

(15) 84 min Fashion photographer turned filmmaker Fred Cavayé (Anything For Her) would have thrived in the old Hollywood studio system. His films operate with the speed and single-mindedness of a runaway locomotive. Give him a high concept premise…

Love Like Poison

Tender coming-of-age film starring Clara Augarde, Michel Galabru and Lio

20 Apr 2011

(15) 85min You’d be hard pushed to find a more honest and tender portrayal of early adolescence than first time director Katell Quillévéré’s coming of age film Love Like Poison. Anna (Clara Augarde) has come home from boarding school for the…

Profile: Cristian Mungiu

A look at the award winning director before his latest work, Tales From the Golden Age

22 Oct 2009

Name Cristian Mungiu Born 27 April 1968 Background The graduate of the Bucharest Film School became the first Romanian director to win the Palme d’Or with his abortion drama 4 months 3 Weeks and 2 Days. Before becoming a full-time director…

Sweden's No Mind Festival - Three Miles North of Molkom

10 Sep 2009

It’s 5pm on a Monday afternoon and I’m crying. I’m sat on the grass mat floor of a big tent and I’m weeping on the shoulder of Carine, a beautiful Swedish lady I have known for only a few days. She’s crying too and our waterborne grief and guilt is…

Sin Nombre

10 Sep 2009

Last chance to see Cary Fukunga’s debut feature, an accomplished and powerful Mexican social thriller which centres on the themes of belonging and escape. When a city gangbanger tries to escape his murderous gang and a Honduran girl tries to sneak…

Rivals (Les Liens du Sang)

27 Nov 2008

THRILLER Based on the autobiographical book by Michel and Bruno Papet Deux Frères – Flic & Truand, Rivals is the story of two brothers in late 1970s Lyon, one a cop, the other a criminal. When the impressively moustachioed Gabriel (François Cluzet…

Times and Winds (Bes Vakit)

2 Oct 2008

DRAMA It’s taken a couple of years for Times and Winds, the fourth feature of Turkish writer-director Reha Erdem, to find a British distributor, but it’s been worth the wait: this magnificent work provides a striking vision of childhood in a…

Seminal Souls - Antonioni and Bergman in the 21st century

A look at the significance of Michelangelo Antonioni and Ingmar Bergman

26 Apr 2012

Dying within twenty four hours of each other, the demise of two great filmmakers in 2007 was clearly a loss, but though Ingmar Bergman came out of retirement to make Saraband in 2002, and Antonioni made one feature, Beyond the Clouds (and a later short…

The Monk director Dominik Moll - interview

The French director discusses his dark and beautiful adaptation of Matthew Lewis’ Gothic horror

26 Apr 2012

'Film has a lot to do with dreams and nightmares,' says Dominik Moll, 'and what I like about making films is that they allow you to show a surface and also what’s underneath. I’m attracted to this double-layer idea.' The German-born French filmmaker…

Monsieur Lazhar

A classroom drama with unexpected charm, quiet dignity and emotional integrity

17 Apr 2012

(12A) 94min Inspirational schoolteachers have been a cinematic staple from Goodbye Mr. Chips to Laurent Cantet’s Cannes prize-winner The Class. Monsieur Lazhar successfully avoids treacly sentimental as it charts how a teacher and a group of…

Goodbye First Love

Intimate but unenlightening romance populated with unlikeable characters

17 Apr 2012

(15) 110mins It’s supposed to be unbearably boring hearing about other people’s dreams. But often that’s not nearly as bad as hearing about other people’s formative love affairs. Watching vain, drippy, lugubrious teenager Camille (Lola Créton) fall…

This is Not A Film

A snapshot into the life of embattled Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi

12 Apr 2012

(U) 75mins This is Not a Film shows us the world of acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi - currently under house arrest in Tehran and facing a 6 year prison sentence and 20 year ban on filmmaking - all for planning to make a film that was deemed…

Bonsai

A likeable drama about past love and missed opportunities

10 Apr 2012

There’s much to like in this gentle drama about young love and missed opportunities but Chilean feature Bonsái feels a little too familiar to make a lasting impact. Julio (Diego Noguera) is an aspiring writer, working in a bookshop by day and…

Revisiting: La Grande Illusion

The chance to see Jean Renoir’s eloquent anti-war statement on the big screen should not be missed

4 Apr 2012

It’s usually described as an anti-war statement, and La Grande Illusion is certainly and eloquently that, but Jean Renoir’s masterpiece – re-released this month – is warmer and less didactic than that tag suggests. The film makes its moral point about…

The Kid with a Bike

Naturalistic storytelling from the Dardenne brothers, starring Cecile de France and Thomas Doret

28 Feb 2012

(12A) 87min The Dardenne brothers’ latest film is one of their very best – the story of the relationship between a young boy Cyril (Thomas Doret), recently taken into foster care, and local hairdresser Samantha (Cecile de France). The two meet by…

Michael

Challenging and non-sensationalist portrayal of a paedophile

28 Feb 2012

(18) 96min Doubtless Austrian writer-director Markus Schleinzer, a former casting director for Michael Haneke, will be pilloried in some quarters for making a film which ‘humanizes’ its paedophile protagonist. Yet what makes this rigorously observed…

GFF 2012 - Kid With a Bike and On The Ice

Dardennes brothers film strikes a chord but Inuit thriller fails to excite

20 Feb 2012

Before the Film Festival began, when talking to people about highlights, one of the picks that kept coming up was the Dardennes brothers' Kid With a Bike. The Dardennes (Jean-Pierre and Luc) are the Belgian filmmaking pair responsible for La Promesse…

Hadewijch

Provocative religious drama from French director Bruno Dumont

24 Jan 2012

(cert tbc)105mins Don’t be put off the fact that it’s taken a couple of years for this provocative examination of contemporary religious martyrdom to gain a cinematic release in the United Kingdom. The film, which explores how extreme faith can…

Interview: Nanni Moretti, writer-director of We Have a Pope

Director of moving and downbeat film on Catholic Church

15 Nov 2011

Did you ever think of casting yourself in the lead role of Melville, the newly elected Pope, who suffers a crisis of confidence? When I was still in the initial stages of the script, I was chatting to friends and I told them I was thinking of writing a…

Africa in Motion 2011 begins with mystical grace

Nacer Khemir's Bab’Aziz kicks off the celebration of African cinema

4 Nov 2011

The launch of this year’s Africa in Motion film festival kicked off at Filmhouse on Wednesday night with a bustling, brightly dressed crowd that would not have seemed out of place in a humming African market. The warm atmosphere of festivity and…

Africa in Motion film festival 2011

Pegase, Tree of Spirits and an appearance by director Obi Emelonye among festival highlights

17 Oct 2011

‘The first criteria is that they are excellent films,’ explains Lizelle Bisschoff, founder of the Africa in Motion film festival, when asked about the selection process for the fest. African cinema is still an unknown factor for many UK filmgoers, and…

Arrietty

Studio Ghibli takes on The Borrowers and delivers charming results

13 Jul 2011

(U) 94min Over three decades, the Studio Ghibli brand of animated storytelling has become a worldwide phenomenon through beloved classics My Neighbour Totoro, Spirited Away and the recent Ponyo. Although not directed by the studio’s co-founder Hayao…

Incendies

Franco-Canadian drama is a deserving award-winner

23 May 2011

(15) 130min This commendable and impressive Franco-Canadian drama arrives fresh from scooping of seven Genies (Canada’s Oscars). Set in the Middle East and dramatising an endless cycle of violence and retribution, it’s an unashamedly didactic piece…

Potiche

Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu star in playful French comedy

23 May 2011

(15) 103 min Catherine Deneuve has a gift of a role in this deliciously subversive farce from the prolific François Ozon. Deneuve is Suzanne, the ‘potiche’ or trophy wife, blithely content to be a domestic goddess in the shadow of insufferable…

Xavier Dolan returns with Heartbeats

The film marries humour with Nouvelle Vague cool, and stars Monia Chokri and Niels Schneider

20 Apr 2011

(15) 100min Xavier Dolan caused a stir two years ago when his assured debut feature, I Killed My Mother, won a string of awards at Cannes. The young director from Montreal was only 20 years old. If that wasn’t impressive enough he returned to the…

Le Quattro Volte

A warm recreation of rural village life in Calabria, Italy

20 Apr 2011

(tbc) 100min Le Quattro Volte is a difficult film to define, part human drama part anthropological study, it explores the interconnectedness of life in a hilltop village in Calabria, Italy. The film loosely links together four narratives: the…

Life, Above All

Director Oliver Schmitz succeeds in making this more than just another 'issues movie'

20 Apr 2011

(tbc) 100min Set in the South African township of Elandsdoorn outside Johannesburg, this forceful coming-of-age drama concerns a 12-year-old girl, Chanda, (Khomotso Manyaka), whom we first meet helping arrange the funeral of her baby sister. Her…

Angels of Evil (Gli Angeli del Mal)

Flawed addition to the gangster movie genre

18 Apr 2011

(15) 128min The story of real-life Milan mobster Renato Vallanzasca, Angels of Evil has all the ingredients for a bloody gangster classic. For starters, there’s actor/director Michele Placido (who made the 2005 crime saga Romanzo Criminale) at the…

Farewell (L'Affaire Farewell) - a romantic thriller set in the midst of the Cold War

Starring Emir Kusterica and Guilliame Canet

28 Mar 2011

(12A) 113min Based loosely on the actions of high ranking KGB official and spy Vladimir Vetrov, Farewell is a complex but tender portrait of the Cold War in free fall, a place where a passionate eccentric like Vetrov (here renamed Grigoriev) can…

Toni Servillo and John Turturro events among Italian Film Festival 2011 highlights

Film by Roberto Rossellini and Paulo Virzi also screened

28 Mar 2011

The Romans reconquer the central belt this year with a selection of the ancient and the modern. For the 2011 outing there’s a spotlight on celebrated actor Toni Servillo with screenings of his films The Girl By the Lake and One Man Up. Italian-American…

Little White Lies (Les Petits Mouchoirs)

Overlong comedy-drama starring Marion Cotillard, Francois Cluzet and Benoit Magimel

18 Mar 2011

(15) 154min Following the international success of his innocent-man-on-the-run thriller Tell No One, French actor/director Guillaume Canet returns with this sprawling ensemble drama, which concerns a group of friends in their 30s and 40s. One of…

Men on the Bridge

Naturalistic Turkish drama set on the Bosphorus Bridge

2 Mar 2011

(15) 90min Spanning some 1.5 km, the frequently gridlocked Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul links Europe and Asia. It’s this impressive edifice, which forms the backdrop to female Turkish director Asli Ozge’s debut feature, which deftly interweaves the…

Benda Bilili!

A documentary on the Congolese rhythm'n'blues band Staff Benda Bilili

2 Mar 2011

Kinshasa is the largest city in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It’s rated as one of the most dangerous cities in the world in terms of crime with a spiraling homeless problem that includes over 20,000 children under the age of 18 living rough…

The Secret In Their Eyes (El Secreto De Sus Ojos)

Argentinean thriller is fluid, emotional, and engrossing.

5 Aug 2010

Everyone expected this year’s Foreign Language Oscar to be a two horse race. It seemed an obvious contest between Michael Haneke’s mesmerising The White Ribbon and Jacques Audiard’s flinty crime drama A Prophet. The surprise winner, of course, was Juan…

Javier Fuente - León's Undertow

3 Aug 2010

Talk about having your cake and eating it. Impossibly good looking Peruvian fisherman Miguel (Cristian Mercado) has an adoring pregnant wife (Tatiana Astengo) and a hot male lover in the shape of visiting artist Santiago (Manolo Cardona). It’s all…

Paradis Regained: Heartbreaker

16 Jun 2010

Matching up diminutive Gallic songstress Vanessa Paradis with hunky acting heavyweight Roman Duris may not have been an obvious fit, but the combination has proved electric. Richard Mowe talks to both actors ahead of the EIFF screening of their film…

Toy Story 3 and The Illusionist among Edinburgh International Film Festival 2010 highlights

5 May 2010

With The Edinburgh Film Festival 2010, which runs between 16-27 June, only a matter of weeks away, the red carpets are getting waterproofed and the popcorn machines are getting serviced. Now in its 64th year, the twelve day festival, packed with…

Hipsters, Bad Lieutenant and a Frightfest at GFF

Glasgow Film Festival blog

1 Mar 2010

Friday afternoon. I decide to brave the vertiginous screens at Glasgow’s Cineworld Renfrew Street where some festival films are also showing. I make the perverse choice of Hipsters, a Russian film with no current UK distributor about a group of post…

Still Walking

17 Feb 2010

Hirokazu Koreeda’s bittersweet dissection of the modern Japanese family with all its dynamics and dysfunctions enjoys a slight return on the big screen. Catch it while you can. Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Fri 19-Wed 24 Feb.

Jean Eustache

16 Nov 2009

In an interview given on the eve of the 26th Cannes Film Festival in May 1973, Jean Eustache voiced his frustration at the reception of his work and his troubled relationship with the film industry in France. ‘Although my films have always been…

Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno finally sees the light of day

30 Oct 2009

Several years ago the French film restoration specialist Serge Bromberg went to visit the octogenarian widow, Ines, of the director Henri-Georges Clouzot, the man responsible for such misanthropic classics as The Raven, The Wages of Fear and Les…

Jeanne La Pucelle: The Battles/The Prisons

Epic Joan of Arc biopic

22 Oct 2009

Following on from Carl Dreyer and Robert Bresson in exploring the story of Joan of Arc, Jacques Rivette offers an account of the martyr that is as political and gender oriented as it is spiritual in this 1995 two-film epic finally available on two…

Tales of the Golden Age (Amintiri Din Epoca De Aur)

Affectionate Romanian cinema

21 Oct 2009

Cristian Mungiu, the Palme D’Or winning Romanian filmmaker of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, would almost certainly find himself in contention with American communications magnate Harold S Geneen’s much quoted belief that ‘We must not be hampered by…

Goodbye Solo

Culture clashing in Queens

21 Oct 2009

Shooting on authentic locations and working with non-professional actors, writer-director Ramin Bahrani makes films about those surviving on the margins of American society. In his debut feature Man Push Cart his protagonist was a Pakistani street…

Africa in Motion: Jean-Stéphanie Sauvaire

The French director on Johnny Mad Dog - his take on Liberia's recent civil war

16 Oct 2009

The use of child soldiers is given a realistic and at times horrifying platform in French director Jean-Stéphanie Sauvaire’s depiction of the civil war that ravaged Liberia for over a decade until peace was declared in 2003. Sauvaire was familiar with…

Profile: Ramin Bahrani

The film-making son of Iranian immigrants

16 Oct 2009

Name Ramin Bahrani Born 20 March 1975, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Background The son of Iranian immigrants to America, Bahrani grew up in North Carolina and studied film at Columbia University in New York, where he made several short films.

Top 5: Africa in Motion

Five films not to miss at this year's festival

16 Oct 2009

My Secret Sky Opening the fourth edition of the Africa in Motion film festival is the UK premiere of this South African film, the feature debut of filmmaker Madoda Ncayiyana. This magical realist tale of Zulu rugs, craft competitions and the need to…

Inside

A rare French gorefest

2 Oct 2009

During the filming of Inside, Béatrice Dalle would hide herself under a hoodie, so upset was she that people would deign to look at her when not looking her best. OK, the character she plays (‘The Woman’) has just had half her face blasted away during…

Thirst

Korean vampire flick

1 Oct 2009

The success of Twilight has inevitably paved the way for a glut of vampire- themed movies of varying merit. But Park Chan-wook’s Thirst is well worth sinking your teeth into. Admittedly overlong and occasionally disjointed, the film nevertheless offers…

The Beaches of Agnes

Playfully eccentric feminist biopic

17 Sep 2009

If this idiosyncratic cinematic self-portrait is indeed Agnes Varda’s final film, it’s an illuminating and poignant adieu. The Belgian-born octogenarian film-maker ‘walks backwards’ through her life, narrating and drawing on clips from her own films and…

Agnès Varda

The considerable career of the ‘grandmother’ of Le Nouvelle Vague

17 Sep 2009

There are rumours that Agnès Varda’s 2008 cinematic autobiography The Beaches of Agnès is her last film. For any octogenarian filmmaker, this might seem like the logical conclusion to a prolific career, but Varda is no ordinary artist. When she…

Agantuk (The Stranger)

10 Sep 2009

Indian cinema legend Satyajit Ray’s final film (before his death in 1992) receives an all too rare screening. A comic dissection of familial trust, honesty and fragile belief systems, Agantuk is a major work from a Bengali great (based on one of Ray’s…

Nagisa Oshima retrospective at Edinburgh Filmhouse

The Pensive Provocateur

2 Sep 2009

A complex figure making sense of a complex, still defeated post-war Japanese society, Nagisa Oshima’s career coincided with the French Nouvelle Vague, and he has proved over the years as provocative a filmmaker as any that came out of France at the end…

Nagisa Oshima retrospective

Legendary Japanese director has his work shown at the Filmhouse

27 Aug 2009

Arguably Japan’s greatest living director is honoured in this fantastic and near comprehensive 22 film retrospective. Tracing Oshima’s impressive body of work from early left-leaning melodramas Cruel Story of Youth, The Sun’s Burial and Night and Fog in…

Mid-August Lunch

The subtle drama of an Italian village

12 Aug 2009

Hitherto best known for co-writing Gomorrah, 60-year-old Gianni di Gregorio makes his directorial debut with this charming tale, which beautifully illustrates Tolstoy’s dictum that ‘To speak to the world, one should write about one’s village’. The…

Cine Cuba

Fifty years of revolution on film

4 Aug 2009

This season celebrating ‘50 Years of Revolution on Film’ hits its stride with Pavel Giroud’s ageing gangster drama Omertà and the queer politics of Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s Strawberry and Chocolate. Also showing later in the season are Manuel Pérez’s…

Also Released - Film

23 Jul 2009

The Blues Brothers (15) 148min John Landis’ enjoyable 1980 musical comedy re-released on digital print in original US edit. Selected release from Fri 24 Jul. G-Force (PG) 90min Comedy adventure about a covertly trained group of guinea pig special…

Also Released - Film

25 Jun 2009

Blood: The Last Vampire (18) 91min Vampire hunter Saya (Gianna Jun) is unrivalled, but that’s because she is half bloodsucker herself – on her mother’s side. Will she go to the dark side or will she carry on fighting for the mortals? Popular anime gets…

Katyn

25 Jun 2009

The secret 1940 execution of 22,000 Polish POW and other patriotic citizens and its legacy is examined in this multi-thread historical drama from veteran Polish filmmaker Andrej Wajda (Danton, Man of Iron, Ashes and Diamonds). Shortly after Germany’s…

The Romance of Astrea and Celadon

25 Jun 2009

After being accused of infidelity by his love, Astrea, shepherd Celadon (Andy Gilet) proves his faithfulness by throwing himself into a fast moving river, only to be revived later by a wealthy nymph and her companions. Will Astrea and Celadon ever…

The Exterminating Angels

25 Jun 2009

Not to be confused with the Buñuel film with a similar name; French auteur Jean-Claude Brisseau's erotic drama is a far more dubious proposition than the surrealist master would dare to offer. The Exterminating Angels concerns a film director François…

Gardens in Autumn

11 Jun 2009

Anyone who’s seen Monday Morning by the Georgian Otar Iosseliani will know he is a filmmaker with a great sense of drift. He’s not interested in plot, but great on spatial texture, ably explored by the great cameraman William Lubtchansky. In Monday…

Blue Eyelids (Parpados Azules)

11 Jun 2009

Love, naivety and loneliness in a modern Mexican megalopolis are essayed in this charming and quirky bittersweet comedy. When factory worker Marina (Cecilia Suárez) wins an all-expenses-paid trip for two from her employer, she realises that, because of…

An Empress and the Warriors

11 Jun 2009

A sentimental story about honour and decency, duty and obligation, Tony Ching Siu Tung’s film is perfectly well made on its own terms, and even manages moments of surprising emotion amid the lazily maudlin. When the emperor dies, his upper-crust…

Reel Iraq

14 May 2009

The point of Charlie Brooker’s excellent Newswipe series, which ended recently, seemed to be that, far from being an honest and agenda-free information source, the news is just as much a constructed text as, say, a novel or a film. And for most people…

O’Horten

30 Apr 2009

DRAMA/COMEDY Maturity, loneliness and the inherent freedoms of breaking with routine are investigated in delightful sixth feature from the gifted Norwegian filmmaker of Kitchen Stories and Factotum. Odd Horten (Baard Owe) is about to retire. After 40…

Il Divo

19 Mar 2009

BIOPIC/DRAMA With Il Divo, the Italian writer-director Paolo Sorrentino (The Consequences of Love, The Family Friend) has spectacularly reinvented the genre of the political biopic. The subject of this darkly amusing and often exhilarating film is…

Film - Also Released

11 Dec 2008

White Christmas (U) 120min New digital print of this Christmas staple. GFT, Glasgow and Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Fri 12-Wed 24 Dec. North Face (12A) 121min Exciting historical adventure recounting the dangerous ascent of the Eiger in 1936 by two…

Quiet Chaos

27 Nov 2008

DRAMA/ROMANCE Nanni Moretti’s 2001 film The Son’s Room explored a middle-class Italian family’s attempt to cope with the unexpected death of a teenage son. Quiet Chaos, which stars and is co-written by Moretti, but is directed by Antonello Grimaldi…