Features

‘I’ve lived here for 23 years, but I am afraid to call it home. There’s always the feeling that I have to leave.’ The opening line of the film All We Imagine as Light perfectly depicts the turmoil of being an immigrant, away from a land you call home. All We Imagine as Light opens with lively shots of Mumbai’s packed streets, capturing the city’s bustling energy. The overwhelming yet soft shots immediately set the tone for the film’s exploration of migration and new beginnings, as millions (…)

It’s odd that, given the current state of things, online lists of ‘films that make you cry’ rarely include political documentaries. Maybe to be seen crying at such a film would betray a shameful naivete (‘didn’t they know the World Bank is evil? What a chump!’) or maybe people don’t watch these films to cry but to be inspired or relieved that someone else, somewhere else is fighting for justice (even if they don’t win). Probably, in 2024, English-speaking audiences watching films about (…)

Schuchi Talati’s first feature film Girls Will Be Girls (2024), starring Kani Kustruti and Preeti Panigrahi, is a tenacious yet tender tale of a mother and daughter in this quiet but dazzling coming of age story. Set in the Himalayas, the film follows sixteen year-old Mira, the first female elected Prefect at her boarding school, as new boy Sri, awakens her sexuality and disturbs her academic routine. Mira’s emotionally strenuous and complicated relationship with her mother entangles her in (…)

Bye Bye Tiberias follows Hiam Abbass, who leaves her Palestinian village of Deir Hanna, to pursue her dream of becoming an actress, leaving behind her mother, grandmother, and sisters. Abbass returns to her village, with her daughter, Lina Soualem, to explore her the history behind those four generations of women, and through that prism, the Palestinian people as a whole. Bye Bye Tiberias is what a firm hug feels like, in the shape of a film - nostalgic, raw, powerful, and sentimental. It (…)

Violet Du Feng’s film tells the story of two Chinese women trying to balance their lives as independent women in modern China while confronting the traditional identity that defines but also oppresses them. Nüshu (女书), literally ‘women script’, is described as a secret language developed by women in Jiangyong Prefecture in China to communicate with each other. At one point as an undergraduate, I came across Nüshu while reading on the intersection between gender and literature in East Asia. (…)

North America: neon motel signs; lens flares; two unlikely companions embarking on a road trip (he’s uptight and reads Chekhov, she’s into aliens and couldn’t name a single Russian author). Have we all seen this movie before? Yes! And no. Unidentified Objects is deftly made and good-looking, attempting to merge, if not subvert, generic conventions. While the plot remains on familiar territory the film is elevated into another dimension by Matthew Jeffer’s performance as Peter, a hot, (…)

The documentary Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (d. Anna Hints) almost entirely takes place in a smoke sauna in Vana-Võromaa, South-East Estonia. In the sauna a group of women come together to purify, cleanse, heal and converse. Opening with haunting chants in a fairy-tail woodland and wisps of smoke, I was reminded of Midsommar, and ignorantly wondered if this Smoke Sauna Sisterhood was going to be a matriarchal cult, albeit in rural Estonia not Sweden. While the documentary deals with the (…)

Julius is an activist and NHS campaigner, and watched the UK Premiere of ‘The Old Oak’ at the Cheltenham International Film Festival, after which Ken Loach answered questions about the film from a packed and very enthusiastic audience. Ken Loach is undoubtedly one of Britain’s greatest film directors, and certainly has been its greatest cinematic social commentator for the last 60 years. Given how long - and how costly - the process of filmmaking is, ‘The Old Oak’ may very well be Loach’s (…)

Chilean Dictator Augusto Pinochet returns from the grave as a depressed immortal vampire living off of blood and impunity. Chile’s infamous dictator Augusto Pinochet returns from the grave in Pablo Larraín’s latest unconventional biopic, El Conde (2023). Premiered in Venice just in time for the 50th anniversary of the US-backed military coup spearheaded by Pinochet in 1973, the film aims to satirise his public figure yet falters when trying to reflect on the enduring legacy of impunity (…)

Ahead of its UK release in the Autumn, here’s our review of Our River…Our Sky (aka Kulshi Makoo in Arabic), Iraqi filmmaker Maysoon Pachachi’s most recent feature film. Enjoy your summer, everyone! Set in Baghdad in 2006, specifically between Christmas and the Adha Eid, the film tells the stories of ordinary Iraqis going about their daily business against a backdrop of random bombings and kidnappings that plagued the country following the American-led invasion. The central character (…)