A divertimento is a light piece of music, written just to amuse. But it’s a slightly incongruous title for Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar’s portrait of the conductor and composer Zahia Ziouani, because the film tackles some pretty heavy themes. To use a current term, this is an “origin story”; telling how a teenage Ziouani went from the…
Fremont is the fourth feature from Iranian born filmmaker Babak Jalali. This low-budget, low-key indie drama follows Donya (played by newcomer Anaita Wali Zada), an Afghan refugee who has relocated to the town of Fremont in California. She used to work as a translator for the US military in Afghanistan before the withdrawal of troops….
Janine Hosking’s The Eulogy provides a compelling portrait of an virtuoso Australian pianist who died far too young. This intriguing film is among the finest documentaries of the year. The starting point is the controversial eulogy former Prime Minister Paul Keating delivered at Geoffrey Tozer’s memorial service (which the ex-PM agreed to re-enact for this…
In 1990, Jennifer Saunders and her comedy partner Dawn French were writing the scripts for the third series of their hit TV show, French and Saunders. They came up with a sketch about a mad, modern mother, an ex-hippy called Adriana – as played by Saunders – and her sad, straight-laced daughter (French). A year…
Lisa Spinelli (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a dedicated kindergarten teacher. But she seems stuck in a sort of midlife crisis. Her homelife is rather dull, and to try and add some spark she has enrolled in an adult poetry writing class in New York, run by the handsome Simon (Gael Garcia Bernal). But he’s initially dismissive…
Have you ever faked it? In the intriguing psychological thriller Who You Think I Am, a middle-aged woman creates a fake Facebook profile to lure a much younger man. He’s on the hook, and she’s besotted, but the pair never meet. She is teacher Claire Millaud (Juliette Binoche), who assumes the name of Clara. She…
A confronting new play from the co-artistic director of the Owl and Cat Theatre, Thomas Ian Doyle, RIOT concerns a 30-year-old bisexual anti-establishment druggie whose life is just drifting. Jim (Jonathan Peck) works in a fast food restaurant because he needs the money. Otherwise, he wouldn’t, as the job means nothing to him. His former…
If tables could talk, I think most of us would want them to shut up pretty quickly. They just sit there watching, year after year, recording all the great events that take place around them, on them and, apparently, under them. In Tanya Ronder’s Table, secrets of the Best family are aired publicly and without…
A highly-charged thriller, Everybody Knows is intoxicating cinema. It’s the work of brilliant Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi who has woven some of the finest stories in recent years including The Salesman, The Past and A Separation. In Everybody Knows, a vital and beautiful girl disappears. Suddenly family threads start to unravel as a shadow of…
I saw a movie called G-Loc a while ago. And my first thought now was: “Why not try another SF?” [*sci-fi – ed.]. Not only because it’s one of my favorite genres. But because G-Loc was horrible and a disappointment in every way. And I wanted to forget this ordeal as soon as possible by…
