Genre: Drama – Page 15 – Wimbledon Film Club

A United Kingdom

In this romantic drama set in post-war Britain and Bechuanaland (now Botswana), writer-director Amma Asante revives a long-forgotten chapter of Britain’s imperial history which still has resonance today. British-Nigerian actor David Oyelowo (whose stand-out performance as Martin Luther King in Selma was seen as having been undeservedly snubbed by the Academy in the ‘Oscars so…

Victim

While a few recent films had touched on the issue obliquely or through a historical setting (e.g. The Trials of Oscar Wilde), Victim stood out as a contemporary drama focusing unambiguously and sympathetically on homosexuality. Star Dirk Bogarde recalled in his biography “countless letters of gratitude flooding in” from gay men after the film’s release.…

Chevalier

In contrast with images now so often associated with Greece, Chevalier is a comedy set on a boat. A group of six men that have gone on a fishing tour are entering a competition of “The best man in general”. Any skill or physical endowment that can possibly be judged is put down in their…

The Rocket

This Australian underdog drama about a young boy thought to bring bad luck to his family is set in the little-filmed country of Laos (one of the world’s few remaining communist states and one of the poorest countries in East Asia), and spoken in the Lao language. While some of the film was filmed in…

The Olive Tree

Alma is very close to her grandfather although he has retreated into dementia. The family has sold of his beloved thousand-year-old olive tree, to pay his debt, but the loss of the tree has brought the grandfather into a depression. When her grandfather refuses to eat, Alma sets out to find the tree for him.…

Our Little Sister

Just as in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Like Father, Like Son (Palme d’Or in Cannes 2013), this is a family drama, but now with a focus on the relationships between sisters. Three of them are living with their grandmother as they have long been estranged from their parents. Their father left them to live with another woman.…

Gueros

This feisty Mexican comedy-drama, filmed in black and white on a micro-budget, is the debut feature from director Alonso Ruizpalacios. Mexican movie star Gael Garcia Bernal (who played Che Guevara in one of the WFC’s earliest features, Motorcycle Diaries) is associate producer. Ruizpalacios was born in 1978 and studied stage directing in Mexico City before…

Neruda

Inventive constructed biopic – part fiction, part fantasy – of the Nobel prize-winning Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, from director Pablo Larrain (Jackie, No, The Club). A fictional inspector played by Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal (star of previous WFC films Motorcycle Diaries and Even the Rain) is caught in a cat and mouse thriller in…

Loving

WFC marks Black History Month with this Oscar-nominated historical drama set during the American Civil Rights era, depicting the relationship of Richard and Mildred Loving and their landmark legal challenge to the State of Virginia’s prohibition of inter-racial marriage. Much of the script is transcribed verbatim from archive material. The film was inspired by Nancy…

The Salesman

Renowned Iranian writer/director Asghar Farhadi’s films depict dramas in the lives of ordinary people that present a microcosm of modern Iran and its complexities, particularly in regard to class and gender, with middle-class marriage his signature theme. As a student Farhadi arrived in Tehran hoping to study cinema in college and was instead assigned to…