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Nostalgia
Nostalgia is based on a 2016 novel by Ermanno Rea, brought to the screen by the distinguished and prolific Italian auteur Mario Martone, who was born in Naples in 1959 and has since directed more than 30 films. Now a Rome resident, he was during the 1990s associated with the new wave of Neapolitan cinema…
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Pretty Red Dress
Debut feature from writer and director Dionne Edwards, who chooses the inner city streets of South London as a backdrop to her complex exploration of black masculinity and self acceptance. Travis, recently released from prison, strives to reintegrate himself into family life but as secrets and desires surface, his life unravels. This moving drama is…
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Pamfir
A family man returned from working abroad is dragged back into crime for one last job. Thrilling and compelling Ukrainian drama set deep in the Carpathians during carnival season, drawing on local folklore to great visual and dramatic effect. "Savagely cinematic, charged with feral energy" (Guardian)."Bold and brave, like its protagonist, PAMFIR gorges on its…
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Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom
Bhutanese writer-director Pawo Choyning Dorji’s first feature film – made on an extremely small budget – weaves together images and stories that he collected as a photographer within Bhutan. Filming in the remote Himalayan village of Lunana was sun-dependent, as solar panels were used to power the crew’s camera, sound and laptop; Dorji explains that…
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Aftersun
Though widely described as a coming-of-age film, Aftersun is more accurately an essay in reflection as the adult Sophie (Rowlson-Hall) looks back on a holiday at a Turkish resort in the 1990s spent with her father, Calum (Mescal). While the wider circumstances are never fully explained, it’s clear that this was a pivotal moment for…
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El Sur
Victor Erice is little known outside Spain despite the plaudits earned by his 1973 debut, The Spirit of the Beehive. In part this is because he has only made 3 feature-length films. El Sur was his follow-up, and arguably his masterpiece, though the finished film is only half of what he planned, the producers having…
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The Banshees of Inisherin
The setting of the film is obviously meant to represent a larger canvas. Inisherin literally translates as Island of Ireland. But this may be just one of many misdirections by Martin McDonagh who gleefully toys with the tropes of Irish history. Far from being a parable about the distantly-heard Civil War, this is a more…
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The Doo Dah Man
The film features some of the classic tropes of American cinema, most obviously from the road-trip movie and the ill-assorted buddy movie, but this familiarity belies a more substantial story about fathers and sons, as well as a deeper literary tradition that goes back to Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. A young man, Jake (Brittain), leaves…