• Preview: Docs Ireland 2019

    June 4, 2019 - By 

    DOCS IRELAND – a brand new documentary film festival – launches this summer, and will be showcasing some of the best new international and Irish music documentaries from 12-16 June in Belfast. At the festival’s launch Co-Chair of Docs Ireland, Brian Henry Martin, said: “It’s more important than ever that we celebrate those brave and creative voices who seek out the truth no matter what it is or where it takes them.” As for documentarians, also read songwriters, their counterparts in demystifying social truths and private worlds. The festival includes new films on PJ Harvey (pictured, top), Chilly Gonzales and…

  • Belfast Film Festival Euro Comedy Season

    January 24, 2019 - By 

    The Belfast Film Festival’s Euro Comedy season continues this week with two eccentric, original offerings: The Man without a Past and A Town called Panic. Aki Kaurismaki’s (The Other Side of Hope) The Man Without a Past plays like a cross between the Coen brothers’ character driven, noir-influenced cinema and the dryly deadpan, surreal films of Roy Andersson. It’s also incredibly beautiful to look at, with cinematographer Timo Salminen and Kaurismaki achieving a kind of live-action Edward Hopper painting in the film’s golden lighting and the precise posing of the characters.   The plot follows M (Markku Peltola) as the…

  • Lady Bird

    February 23, 2018 - By 

    Screenwriting 101, they say, is create conflict. Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Ronan), the protagonist of writer-director Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, is a constant source of conflict, perennially fighting with all those around her. For what, she’s not always sure, it’s simply who she is. Her fighting is a form of self-expression, she’s fighting for her self-expression. As she says when a Father at her Catholic high school asks if “Lady Bird” is her given name- “Yes, I gave it to myself. It’s given to me, by me.” Set in 2002, Christine’s roller coaster final year of high school provides…

  • Weirded Out: An Interview With Feminist Horror Champions The Final Girls

    October 27, 2017 - By 

    Women have always been key figures in horror cinema, from Barbara Steele to Jamie Lee Curtis to Katharine Isabelle. While characters like Ellen Ripley, Laurie Strode and Sidney Prescott represent some of the most famous examples of one of the horror genre’s most celebrated tropes – ‘the final girl’. Taking inspiration from this genre staple – coined by academic Carol J. Clover in 1992 – the Final Girls, a London-based programming partnership comprised of Olivia Howe and Anna Bogutskaya, have been exploring feminist themes in the horror genre through a series of screenings and writing. Crucial to their work is…

  • Victoria & Abdul

    September 18, 2017 - By 

    In this era of cinematic universes and franchises, it’s easy to forget that British cinema has one of its own: the Royal family. The huge success globally of films like The Queen and The King’s Speech means that the subject continues to be revisited even as support for the real British Royal family wanes. So, in 2010 when Shrabani Basu published a book revealing a hitherto unknown relationship between Queen Victoria and an Indian servant, Abdul Kareem, a film version was inevitable, and seven years later here we are. Victoria & Abdul details the story of a young Indian man…

  • The Graduate

    July 18, 2017 - By 

    Fifty years have passed since the original release of The Graduate, the film that launched Dustin Hoffman as a star, innovated the pop music movie soundtrack and confirmed Mike Nichols’ genius with 1967’s Best Director Oscar. The highest grossing film at the U.S. box office that year, its success helped to usher in a new wave of young Hollywood filmmakers and the most creative decade in American cinema history followed during the 1970s. While the film’s historical cinematic significance is without dispute, The Graduate remains a thoroughly modern film – in both its themes and style – that demands to…

  • George Best: All By Himself

    March 9, 2017 - By 

    George Best: All By Himself begins in darkness, with the voices of commentators eulogising George Best’s remarkable footballing talent, before the dreamlike moment is shattered by a recollection of Best’s ex-wife Angie of seeing a homeless man walking along the road, only to realise it was George. In Daniel Gordon’s documentary, football is secondary to the tragedy of Best’s personal demons, as Gordon attempts to unravel the enigma and get to the root cause of the star’s dramatic decline into alcoholism. Gordon’s film unfolds in a largely chronological structure, taking the audience from Best’s humble beginnings, through his meteoric rise…

  • Hacksaw Ridge

    February 10, 2017 - By 

    Hollywood loves a comeback. It’s a narrative that always seems to come into play around awards season and it’s been a longer road back for Mel Gibson than most. Incredibly, it’s been ten years since the Oscar-winning director of Braveheart (1995) last stepped behind the camera on 2006’s Apocalypto; also, not coincidentally, the year of Gibson’s anti-Semitic tirade that came after an arrest for drink-driving. Finally, with his new film Hacksaw Ridge, a story steeped in redemption and tolerance, Gibson is ready to stand triumphantly atop the mountain again. Hacksaw Ridge is the tale of real-life World War II veteran…

  • La La Land

    January 17, 2017 - By 

    After assaulting our senses with 2014’s furiously frenetic Whiplash, Damien Chazelle sets his sights on our hearts in his new film, the romantic musical, La La Land. It seems the young director’s ambitions know no bounds as he transports audiences back to the era of Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in this throwback to Hollywood’s golden age. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone star as Sebastian, a talented, but temperamental pianist who dreams of owning his own jazz club, and Mia, an aspiring actress stuck on the never-ending audition carousel in LA. When this pair of down at heel…

  • Arrival

    November 14, 2016 - By 

    Most people may not know the name yet, but they soon will. Denis Villeneuve, with films like Prisoners, Enemy and Sicario, has quickly established himself as one of the most gifted visual storytellers working today – this generation’s Ridley Scott. Ironically enough, he will step into Scott’s shoes next year as the director of a new Blade Runner movie. His latest film, Arrival, tells the story of first contact between humans and an unknown alien race, offering Villeneuve a dry run at the sci-fi genre and blockbuster filmmaking on a whole other scale, although Arrival is much more than just…