If you find period ghost stories appealing and are a fan of Charles Dickens, I may have just the ticket for you. British writer Hugh Janes has combined five of Dickens’ lesser-known ghost stories with elements of the author’s private life, his books and letters to create The Haunting. The action is set in an ancient…
Between 1915 and 1923, the Ottoman Empire murdered some 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children in a systematic policy of genocide aimed at wiping out the entire population. It has been recognised as one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. But when the history of WWI is written, this horrific episode is…
A series of vignettes about what it is like being disabled and chronically ill, and the judgments others make, Have You Tried Yoga? is both illuminating and engaging. The star of the piece is also the creator and director, Rachel Edmonds; who makes her professional theatrical debut. Edmonds radiates warmth with her matter-of-fact style of storytelling….
The novels of British author Daphne du Maurier have provided a great source of material for filmmakers with their deft mix of intrigue, mystery, murder, mistrust and romance. Alfred Hitchcock captured the gothic atmosphere of her novel Rebecca, while he brought a sense of unease and menace to his adaptation of The Birds, a tale…
Churchill is a fascinating portrait of a man of high intellect who was facing a fight on two fronts in the final months of the Second World War. On the one hand there were the lives of hundreds of thousands of young men whose lives he was about to put on the line and then there…
Slow moving, intelligent and thought-provoking, Graduation is a slice-of-life piece tackles fear, honesty and morality. Forty-nine year-old Romeo Aldea (Adrian Titieni), a physician living in a small mountain town in Transylvania, has raised his daughter, Eliza (Maria Dragus), with the idea that once she turns 18, she will leave home to study and live abroad. His…
A pall of foreboding hangs over almost every scene in the harrowing thriller Hounds of Love. That foreboding turns to dread and then white-knuckle fear. The film marks an auspicious feature debut from writer/director Ben Young. Hounds of Love is set in Perth during the summer of 1987. Teenage girls are disappearing from the streets. They…
It is April 1984. Comrade 6079, Winston Smith (Tom Conroy), has a thought, starts a diary and falls in love, but Big Brother is watching his every move. You see, he is not allowed to think for himself. He has to tow the party line at all times and subversives are outed and disciplined for thought…
Intrigue is the currency of merit in the intelligent, slow-moving drama, The Sense of an Ending. Tony Webster is semi-retired. The Internet and mobile phones are foreign to him. He potters around in his small shop which sells expensive second-hand cameras. Although long divorced from his lawyer wife, the pair remain on friendly speaking terms, especially…
A melancholic coming-of-age drama, there is much to enjoy from 20th Century Women. The film is set in Santa Barbara in the summer of 1979. Dorothea Fields (Annette Bening – The Kids Are All Right) is a determined single mother in her mid-50s, raising her adolescent son, Jamie (newcomer Lucas Jade Zumann), at a time of cultural…
