In the first instalment of Talking Spectacles I spoke to Matt Houlihan from The Garden Cinema about the drooling aliens of Alien, Event Horizon’s gothic spaceships and the wonderfully absurd animatronics of The Thing. Alien - This is (…) Continue Reading »

One night, while guarding his aunt’s house in a remote Lebanese village, Anis is forced to pretend he is a burglar to save his life during a break-in. An amusing short with a likeable cast. Very impressive debut short by Lebanese (now) filmmaker (…) Continue Reading »

Eissa, a 17-year-old African migrant in Egypt, races to beat the clock and save his loved ones after a violent incident, no matter what it takes. Morad Mostafa has a real knack for telling complex, intimate and three-dimensional stories from (…) Continue Reading »

A woman struggles with the pressures of motherhood and uses a childish game at a local baby group to vent her fury, sparking an unexpected chain reaction. The chaos, misery, elation, isolation and general upheaval - positive or negative - (…) Continue Reading »

A single piece of jewellery holds the story of generations. Director Ruth and her mother go back to Ethiopia and explore her mother’s story as a survivor of the Red Terror genocide. A remarkable and ambitious documentary by Ruth Hunduma. By (…) Continue Reading »

A coming of age drama about the cracks that form in childhood friendships, the vulnerability of youth and the frailty of parental figures. Avoiding didacticism and cliches, Beth Rowland shares a thoughtful, nuanced and well-told story depicting (…) Continue Reading »

In Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, a woman walks into a chadari store in Kabul to buy her first full-body veil and face an uncertain future. OSCAR-shortlisted and BAFTA-longlisted film "Yellow" is a beautiful, sensitive and intimate glimpse (…) Continue Reading »

In our final instalment for World VFX day we spoke to comedian and old school effects fan Chris Lumb about the library ghost from Ghostbusters and the face melting scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Ghostbusters - library ghost (Ivan Reitman, 1984) EEG When I about 7yrs old I saw Ghostbusters at the cinema with my brother and was totally blown away by this jump scare at the start, screaming (…) Continue Reading »

Happy World VFX Day! We spoke with Sam Hall, actor and Senior Research and Development Engineer at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) about the T-Rex scene in Jurassic Park, Pixar’s anthropomorphic Blue Umbrella and rendering black holes in (…) Continue Reading »

Happy World VFX Day! There’s nothing more special than special effects. Whether digital or practical, special effects are created by a highly skilled, specialised labour force and have created some of cinema’s most captivating images (that’s (…) Continue Reading »