Festivals and Events

As a black American living in London nothing grates on me like being asked where my parents, grandparents or great-grandparents are from. This is the inevitable follow-up question which accompanies the initial enquiry into where I’m from, to which I reply "California". It’s not the fact of being asked that grates on me—I get it, I’m a foreigner. Added to which I was also raised in what was, at the time, a white suburb, and new black arrivals from acceptable black places like Oakland or East (…)

During her 1972 presidential campaign, politician Shirley Chisholm was questioned about her willingness to work with the Black Panther Party. Chisholm responded that rather than focusing on the Panthers themselves, the nation should consider the conditions that created them. In his eighth film to premiere at Sundance, writer and director Stanley Nelson Jr makes a similar point, but unfortunately doesn’t delve deeply into these conditions. Audiences already engaged with discourses on race and (…)

Above and Below is a charming and inoffensive documentary surrounding the lives of a few outcasts who have completely distanced themselves from ‘ordinary’ life and the society that this comprises. Whether this rejection is a result of their situation or a choice varies between each character. The film follows the lives of three sets of people – those living above the earth (mars), on ground level (the desert) or below the streets (in the tunnels of Las Vegas). The documentary begins (…)

Chameleon is a light-hearted and genuinely interesting look at the “most successful investigative journalist in Africa:” Ghana-based Anas Aremeyaw Anas, who helps the police investigate serious crimes and reports them back to the public. The documentary follows Anas as he takes on several serious criminal cases and successfully raises awareness of these among the general public, seeking full transparency as a means to reduce corruption in Ghana. This is the recurrent message of the film; (…)

Shubbak (meaning ‘window’ in Arabic) is London’s largest festival of contemporary Arab culture. For its third edition, which runs from the 11-26 July, Shubbak asked renowned Palestinian director Michel Khleifi to curate its main film programme. It will include some of his own work and a selection of Arab and European films. The running themes are representations of Palestine, the emancipation of women and representations of Arabs in European cinema. Screenings will be held across a number (…)

It brought it all back, the years that formed the person I am today: the Thatcher Years. Generation Right is a powerful reminder of why I became a radical community activist. It tells the story of Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Britain’s first female Prime Minister. As a child I vaguely remember women celebrating at first (not so much by the end of her reign). But back then there was a sense of pride that a woman was in office - just like the the hope many of us felt when Obama became president. (…)

Watching Welcome to Leith weeks after the shooting in Charleston the stakes are high. The film has at its centre the white supremacist Craig Cobb and is being seen around the world at a time when the reality of racist violence is (momentarily) palpable to a wide audience. Yet even in this context the film’s most powerful element isn’t its depiction of the threat of a white supremacist organisation, but its presentation of the futility of a resistance which fails to cohere and the melancholy (…)

An interesting and well-meaning documentary, The Divide presents audiences with a frequently mentioned, though infrequently interrogated, phenomenon- the divide of the rich and the poor in the Western world. The film begins with a quote from Warren Buffett, “the most successful investor of the 20th century": “There’s a class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” This beginning sets us up with the impression that the film promises an (…)

Struggling actress Anna is at the end of her tether. Still reeling from a recent breakup with dial-a-scumbag John and a failed audition, she packs up and heads for Paris to spend a few days with her gay best friend, Jean. Meanwhile, John is in Paris on business and Jean’s relationship with Philippe is going sour. So far so common or garden chick flick. But director Sophie Mathisen, who also plays Anna, eschews the usual hysterical escalations and slapstick and instead gives the space and (…)

Tea Time opens with painted half-smiles on porcelain dolls, mint green buttercream and sugar pearls, strawberries, cherries, and slices of lemon. Women wear floral blouses, tweed jackets, long gold chains strung with turquoise beads, crucifix pendants, and coral nail varnish. María Teresa – the narrator, and director Maite Alberdi’s grandmother – introduces her best friends. The one who was denied higher education; the one who never married, and doesn’t like talking about love; the one who (…)