Tom Dawson
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Profile: Olivier Assayas, director of Something in the Air
17 May 2013
The writer-director specialises in period pieces that don't slide into nostalgia
Born 1955, Paris Background The son of a screenwriter father and a painter mother, Assayas worked as a critic for Cahiers du Cinéma, before making his directorial debut in 1986 with Disorder. A writer-director with an impressive ability to work…
Something in the Air
10 May 2013
Olivier Assayas returns with bittersweet portrait of countercultural French 70's youth
French writer-director Olivier Assayas follows up his epic chronicle of legendary terrorist Carlos the Jackal with this bittersweet portrait of countercultural youth in early 70s France. ‘Diffusely autobiographical’ is how the filmmaker has described…
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
10 May 2013
Adaptation of Mohsen Hamid’s book starring Riz Ahmed and Kate Hudson
A globetrotting adaptation of Mohsen Hamid’s allegorical first-person novella, director Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a thriller in which the character names are freighted with symbolic baggage. Britain’s Riz Ahmed is impressive as the…
In the Fog
16 Apr 2013
A stately, austere and richly atmospheric war film from director Sergei Loznitsa
‘I have done nothing wrong,’ insists railway worker Sushenya (Vladimir Svirskiy), when two local partisans Burov (Vladislav Abashin) and Voitik (Sergei Kolesov) call on his modest family home. We’re in occupied Belarus in 1942, and a group of saboteurs…
Trance
22 Mar 2013
Vibrant, genre-subverting thriller contains trio of assured performances
Director Danny Boyle has a flair for making vibrant, zeitgeist-capturing films about characters in extreme situations ultimately overcoming the odds – whether it’s an Edinburgh heroin addict in Trainspotting, a teenaged Mumbai orphan accused of cheating…
Matteo Garrone, director of satirical drama Reality - interview
19 Mar 2013
The filmmaker behind astounding Mafia portrait Gomorrah turns his eye to reality TV
It was thanks to his theatre critic father that Italian film director Matteo Garrone first came across the work of the Fortezza theatre company, based at a maximum-security prison in Tuscany. ‘I used to go with my dad to see lots of plays,’ recalls the…
One Mile Away
14 Mar 2013
Heartfelt documentary from Penny Woolcock about gang violence in Birmingham
Winner of the Michael Powell award at last summer’s Edinburgh Film Festival, Penny Woolcock’s heartfelt if sometimes naïve documentary charts the efforts by representatives of two notorious inner-Birmingham street gangs, the Burger Bar Boys and the…
Profile: Francois Ozon, director of In the House
8 Mar 2013
The former enfant terrible of French cinema on his dislike of writing and admiration for Hitchcock
Born 15 November, 1967, Paris Background On the basis of his early shorts See the Sea and A Summer’s Dress and his debut feature Sitcom, writer-director Francois Ozon was labelled in the late 1990s as an enfant terrible of French cinema. He has…
To the Wonder
18 Feb 2013
Terence Malick's impressionistic hymn to falling in and out of love
You wait six years for a new Terence Malick film -- that was the gap between The New World and The Tree of Life -- and then another one materialises barely a year later. Advance reports indicated that this was the enigmatic director’s most…
Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God
12 Feb 2013
Damning doc implicating Pope Benedict XVI in the Catholic church's cover-up of child sex abuse
Roland Barthes devised the term 'inoculation theory' to explain how the dominant order in society permits a few ‘bad-apple’ individuals within corrupt organisations to be blamed for wrong-doing, as a way of deflecting attention away from any fundamental…
Everyday
25 Jan 2013
Michael Winterbottom's poetic-realist prison drama is deserving of a cinematic release
Shot intermittently over a five-year period, writer-director Michael Winterbottom’s Everyday is explicitly concerned with the passing of time. Ian (John Simm) is serving a jail sentence for an unspecified crime, and he receives visits from his wife…
Hors Satan
21 Dec 2012
Contemplative religious drama from Bruno Dumont, director of Hadewijch
For an avowedly atheistic director, the uncompromising French auteur Bruno Dumont seems strangely fascinated by questions of religious faith and the mysterious workings of grace. Following on from Hadewijch, a provocative examination of contemporary…
Zaytoun
20 Dec 2012
A dramatically and emotionally unconvincing Middle-Eastern road movie, starring Stephen Dorff
Israeli director Eran Riklis teams up with first-time Palestinian writer Nader Rizq in this handsomely photographed Middle-Eastern road movie, which charts an improbable friendship between an Israeli pilot Yoni (Stephen Dorff) and an orphaned…
War photographer Don McCullin discusses the new documentary about his life
18 Dec 2012
The 77-year-old photographer talks to us as he prepares to head out to Syria
The photographer Don McCullin has spent over five decades travelling the world and recording for magazines and newspapers the suffering inflicted upon ordinary people caught in civil war, conflict and humanitarian disasters. He has reported from the…
Boxing Day
18 Dec 2012
Disappointing adaptation of Tolstoy's Master and Man from director Bernard Rose
A case of diminishing returns in term of British writer-director Bernard Rose’s Tolstoy adaptations, given that Boxing Day is his fourth film based on the work of the 19th century Russian novelist – see also Anna Karenina, Ivansxtc (inspired by The Life…
The Hunt
5 Nov 2012
Worthwhile Danish drama exploring the witch hunt mentality around paedophilia
Danish writer-director Thomas Vinterberg’s self-styled ‘old tale in modern clothes’ stars Bond villain Mads Mikkelsen in a boldly cast-against-type role, as a softly-spoken kindergarten teacher Lucas, who is falsely accused one winter of sexually…
Profile: Yorgos Lanthimos, director of Alps
1 Nov 2012
The Greek filmmaker is also the man behind comedy drama Dogtooth
Born Athens, Greece, 1973 Background Having studied at film school in Athens, Lanthimos made his debut feature with My Best Friend in 2001. It was his third feature Dogtooth however, a bizarre black comedy about an upper-class Greek couple who try…
In the House (Dans La Maison)
9 Oct 2012
Fascinating new offering from French filmmaker Francois Ozon.
A sparkling and superbly acted black comedy, Francois Ozon’s In the House is a fascinating companion piece to Ian McEwan’s new novel Sweet Tooth, in its exploration of both creating and consuming fiction. The wonderfully deadpan Fabrice Luchini plays…
Reality
9 Oct 2012
Magic realist drama from Gomorrah director Matteo Garrone
Meet Luciano (Aniello Arena), a Neapolitan fish-seller and minor scam artist. Encouraged by his wife Maria (Loredana Simioli), three children and extended family, he enters the local try-outs for the popular reality TV series Grande Fratelli (Big…
Apocalypse Archives: James Marsh
14 Aug 2012
Man on Wire director picks five films he'd save if the world were ending
Elephant ’It’s one of the best films, along with The Battle of Algiers, ever made about an armed conflict: it shows how relentless, exhausting and pointless the killings were in Northern Ireland. The director Alan Clarke is best know for his politics…
Take This Waltz
8 Aug 2012
Michelle Williams on compelling form in Sarah Polley's romantic drama
Are you old enough to remember the anthemic Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles, which will go down in pop history as being the first ever music video to play on MTV? Canadian actress turned director Sarah Polley uses the song on two occasions to…
Offender
28 Jul 2012
Great performances from Joe Cole and English Frank let down by derivative plotting
Billed as a 21st century Scum, this derivative contemporary British revenge thriller is the debut feature of commericals director Ron Scalpello. Scripted by Paul Van Carter, it’s the wildly melodramatic story of a teenage labourer Tommy (Joe Cole from…
Profile – Rebecca Thomas, director of Electrick Children
17 Jul 2012
The film follows a Mormon girl's exposure to life outside her community
Born 1984, Las Vegas Background Having grown up in the Mormon faith, Thomas studied at Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City, before taking a graduate film production degree at Columbia University in New York. A short film she wrote, Nobody…
The Fairy
17 Jul 2012
A knowing yet innocent absurdist love story from Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon and Bruno Romy
Directed by the Belgian-based mime artist trio Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon and Bruno Romy (the people behind 2008’s Rumba), this whimsical, Tati-esque fairytale plays like a live-action cartoon, albeit one filled with gawkily acrobatic human actors.
Electrick Children
17 Jul 2012
Rebecca Thomas' feature-length debut features a standout performance from Julia Garner
Is it possible to get pregnant through simply listening on a tape recorder to a cover version of Blondie’s ‘Hanging on the Telephone’? That’s what 15-year-old Mormon Rachel (Julia Garner) believes, and consequently she runs away from her family’s farm…
