Yngvild Sve Flikke’s gorgeous, feminist drama snuck up on me like a ninja, baby.
Continue readingNinjababy (2021)
StandardTag Archives: 4.5 stars
Come Back Anytime (また いらっしゃい) (2021)
Standard
You will leave this exquisite documentary about Tokyo ramen master Masamoto Ueda with a full heart and a hankering for chashu ramen.
Continue readingCaptains of Za’atari (2021)
Standard
A lushly-beautiful documentary with a story that perfectly encapsulates the plight and humanity of refugees.
Continue readingLa Verónica (2020)
Standard
Mariana Di Girolamo is in the centre of every frame in Leonardo Medel’s stylish, unsettling and completely absorbing look at artifice and narcissism.
Continue readingLast and First Men (2017)
Standard
This was the first time at MIFF 68.5 that I really missed being in a cinema. Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson directs his only feature, bringing together three distinct and disparate components to create an emotional experience that cries out for sensory immersion.
Continue readingLa Llorona (2019)
Standard
Mixing just the right notes of folklore, social realism, tragedy and horror, Jayro Bustamante deftly weaves a compelling and emotional story about the genocide of the indigenous Mayan-Ixil people in 1980s Guatemala.
Continue readingWelcome to Chechnya (2020)
Standard
I couldn’t look away from this gripping documentary about the awful abuse and murder of LGBT+ people in Chechnya. What at first seems a story about gay people, becomes something much more universal where we can see the awful ripple effects of persecution, the terrible cost and how easy it is to become a refugee.
Continue readingDAU. Natasha (2020)
Standard
On the surface, this may seem like a standard arthouse movie about 1950s Soviet life. As it is, this small but intense story of two canteen workers in a secret Soviet research institute is hard to look away from but, when you learn more about the DAU project, it becomes remarkable.
Continue readingExile (Exil) (2020)
Standard
Director Visar Morina perfectly captures the uneasy dislocation of being a foreigner in a structured and comfortable society, using every frame to push us into a growing paranoia.
Continue readingBorn to Be (2019)
Standard
There are probably many people like Dr Jess Ting in the world, just going about their work but, because of their empathy and dedication to making a difference, they change people’s lives.
Continue reading
