Perhaps my emotional engagement, or struggle with it, with this film about a young girl coming to terms with her parents divorce says something about the distance I have from childhood compared to motherhood.
Continue readingMoving (1993)
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I Shall Not Hate (2024)
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I had a bit of a revelation after watching this documentary about a Palestinian doctor working in Gaza and Israel, that if you want to understand situations like this, conflicts that are happening all over the world, the best way is to watch a documentary about it.
Continue readingThe Rye Horn (2023)
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I feel like there should be a single word or term for films like this, that provoke intense emotion and are beautiful but are telling you something fundamentally tragic and melancholic about the world. I’ve seen a few MIFF films that would fit this. Maybe bittersweet, but it feels more profound than that. Tristesse. Dolorous.
Continue readingHoard (2023)
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This one will stick in your mind whether you love it or hate it. It’s like Fish Tank meets Kajillionaire.
Continue readingReinas (2024)
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The title means ‘queens’ and we are immersed in a fractured family in Peru in the 70s. It’s the start of 10 years of dictatorship, at a time where inflation is doubling overnight and there is increasing unrest and violence in the streets.
Continue readingIntercepted (2024)
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I found this documentary hard going. If I’d seen it at the start of the festival and less tired, I might have been awed by the technique of overlapping footage with disconnected but meaningful audio.
Continue readingThe Story of Souleymane (L’histoire de Souleymane) (2024)
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I had heard a buzz about this French drama by Boris Lojkine which can be a blessing or a curse. Gladly, the rumours were true.
Continue readingBlackout (2023)
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Late night B grade horror is a bit of a MIFF treat but I think I knew 10 minutes in that this one was not going to be a ‘so bad, it’s good one’.
Continue readingMenus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros (2023)
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No Other Land (2024)
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I remember feeling similarly shell-shocked after For Sama. There is something devastatingly compelling about first person footage during wartime and with No Other Land, it wasn’t even officially a war.
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