At the Raindance film festival, London, UK, 27 October–6 November 2021 I Am Gen Z is a documentary about, er, Generation Z, and while it kicks off with a quick intro as to who Gen Z are NOT – they’re not millennials (born early 80s to mid 90s), instead they’re the next cohort (mid/late 90s … Read more

At the Raindance film festival, London, UK, 27 October–6 November 2021 You’re either a fan of the wacky, the quirky and the whimsical or you’re not. All Sorts is all three and yet manages to avoid the can’t-be-arsedness of so many films that think that they only have to be zany and suddenly every other … Read more

At the Raindance film festival, London, UK, 27 October–6 November 2021 When is she going to crack? It’s the question asked by Tonia Mishiali’s feature debut, Pause (aka Paúse), and then answered in a series of gotchas. Pause as in Menopause, the film’s working title, and in an opening scene that’s more amusing to watch … Read more

The Hater (Sala Samobójców. Hejter in the original Polish) slots in alongside Brechtian “man on the make” dramas like The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, or the novel/film Room at the Top, or even Mephisto, the Klaus Mann novel and 1981 movie by István Szabó. It’s a film about a young man who believes in … Read more

Tommaso is a film by Abel Ferrara that’s essentially a film about Abel Ferrara, with Willem Dafoe in the lead role as an avatar of the writer/director, a creative dude trying to live out his golden years in Italy but finding old demons constantly resurfacing. It’s an uncomfortable and not entirely gripping drama, though Dafoe’s … Read more

At the Raindance film festival, London, UK, 27 October–6 November 2021 Swerving the woe-is-me of the issue-driven drama, Sami, Joe and I (Sami, Joe und Ich) takes on the sort of problems teenage girls encounter without becoming a hostage to them and also celebrates the vital force of female friendships without becoming sappy. Quite a … Read more

Relic is a horror film that’s abnormally effective because it’s about something that’s going to happen to us all – old age (if we’re lucky) and death. As it opens Grandma Edna (Robyn Nevin) has gone missing. And so her daughter, Kay (Emily Mortimer) and granddaughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) have turned up at her house to … Read more

At the Raindance film festival, London, UK, 27 October–6 November 2021 French-Canadian film-maker Philippe Grégoire’s debut feature The Noise of Engines (Le bruit des moteurs) starts off with various shots of cars donutting away in rubber-burning circles, going nowhere, but fast. It’s a metaphor, of sorts, for a story about a young man who seems … Read more

At the Raindance film festival, London, UK, 27 October–6 November 2021 As Far As I Know (Legjobb tudomásom szerint in the original Hungarian) is the smart and subtle feature debut of Nándor Lörincz and Bálint Nagy, a writing/directing duo who have been working together for ten years, with a run of shorts and a couple … Read more

An update on the Truman Show idea, Free Guy follows a Non Player Character in a game – the ones who get shot at or driven into in shoot-em-ups and driver games – who starts to get an inkling of what he is. Ryan Reynolds plays the guy called Guy – he’s got a buddy called … Read more

At the Raindance film festival, London, UK, 27 October–6 November 2021 Formula written, if you’re feeling grouchy, inspired by Hollywood’s golden era, if you’re not, Best Sellers has two great performers at its centre – Michael Caine, still pumping out the charisma and deadly comic timing at 88, and Aubrey Plaza, who ups her ante … Read more

In I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians (originally Îmi este indiferent daca în istorie vom intra ca barbari), Romanian auteur Radu Jude takes on the his country’s treatment of the Jews in the Second World War, as part of Hitler’s Final Solution. The title comes from a speech made … Read more