BFI Flare: Queen of Coal (Agustina Macri, 2025)

Coal mining in Argentina is small and highly concentrated in the Río Turbio basin of southern Patagonia, where a state‑owned company operates the country’s only significant coal mine and associated infrastructure.  The coal extracted there feeds a dedicated power plant project and supplies a minor share of industrial demand, leaving coal with less than 1% of Argentina’s electricity mix.  Although national coal reserves are on the order of hundreds of millions of tonnes, actual production is quite modest; this limited role has placed Río Turbio at the centre of debates about shifting local jobs and development away from coal.

The Patagonian mining industry it at the centre of Agustina Macri's Queen of Coal, which screens on Tuesday as part of this year's BFI Flare.  Macri's film tells the true story of Carla "Carlita" Rodríguez, who made history by becoming the first woman miner in Río Turbio.  Carlita is played by Lux Pascal, the younger sister of The Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal.  Lux actually acted alongside her big brother in Netflix series Narcos, and it is the streaming giant who have overseen the international release of Queen of Coal.  The film is based on the eponymous article by Erika Halvorsen, who co-wrote the brisk screenplay with Mara Pescio.

Queen of Coal follows Carlita as she applies for a job at the mine, which she is eligible for because her ID still lists her as male (women are barred from mining work).  Carlita quickly learns the ropes and soon excels at her job, proving herself to be an indispensable member of the team.  Aside from a few jibes and snide remarks, she is generally accepted by her colleagues.  However, problems arise when the passing of the Gender Identity Law results in her being officially classified as a woman—forcing her reassignment to a mundane clerical role in the mining company's office, where the women are far less tolerant than the miners.

This situation leaves Carlita miserable and unwell, prompting her to take medical leave before deciding to fight for reinstatement in the mine.  Outside of work, she begins a tentative romance with a visiting engineer, played by Spanish actor Paco León, but her relationship with her parents can be described as strained at best.  While the trajectory of the film will surprise no one, Agustina Macri elevates the material beyond a rote biopic, aided by a terrific performance from Lux Pascal.  The wintry, isolated mining locale recalls Mon oncle Antoine, and Macri uses the striking Patagonian landscape to powerful effect.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI

BFI Flare: Love Letters (Alice Douard, 2025)

In 2021, France passed a major bioethics reform that opened IVF and other medically assisted reproduction to all adult women, including single women and those in same‑sex relationships.  The law also allowed elective egg freezing without a medical reason for women between the ages of 29 and 37.  Fertility treatments continued to be reimbursed by the public health insurance system, and from late 2021 lesbians and single women could start IVF in France instead of travelling to countries like neighbouring Belgium.  The reform also recognised a specific filiation procedure for two mothers in female couples.

These changes to the law are at the heart of Alice Douard’s feature debut, Love Letters (French: Des preuves d’amour), even though it is set in 2014, several years before the landmark ruling came into effect.  The film follows Céline (Ella Rumpf) and Nadia (Monia Chokri), a married couple on the brink of parenthood.  Nadia is six months pregnant (via a donor in Denmark), and as such her role is quite clearly defined.  But it’s not as simple for Céline, who, upon the birth, must begin a long and arduous legal process for which there is little precedent, given that the law allowing same-sex couples to adopt is less than a year old.

In order to legally become the child's mother, Céline must fulfil several requirements, one of which is to provide 15 separate testimonies from a range of close friends and relatives.  These written statements will serve, as suggested by the film’s original title, as proof of love between Céline and the baby.  Céline needs one of these letters to be written by her mother, Marguerite (Noémie Lvovsky), a famous concert pianist with whom she has long had an uneasy relationship.  Meanwhile, as they consider suitable candidates for the statements, the highly-stressed couple are also busy making the necessary arrangements for the birth.

Love Letters—which screens at BFI Flare on Saturday and Sunday—is a wonderfully assured debut feature, and Douard taps into Céline's immense frustrations as she, unlike Nadia, must jump through hoops to prove she’s qualified to be a mother.  Swiss actress Rumpf, previously best known for her starring role in Julia Ducournau’s Raw, gives a deeply nuanced performance, conveying how her character is gradually diminished in the eyes of others to the point of near invisibility.  But viewers who, like Céline, endure the knocks and crushing bureaucracy will ultimately be rewarded with a moment of transcendent beauty.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI / Tandem

BFI Flare: The Broken R (Ricardo Ruales Eguiguren, 2025)

Ricardo Ruales Eguiguren's documentary The Broken R (Spanish: Rotacismo), which screens on Saturday as part of BFI Flare, was made with the backing of International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam's Bertha Fund (IBF).  The IBF should not be confused with IFF Rotterdam's Hubert Bals Fund (HBF), even though both schemes serve much the same purpose: to support emerging filmmakers in territories—such as parts of Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America—where local film infrastructure is lacking.  Receiving IBF funding precludes a project from benefitting from the HBF's support, and vice versa.

The Broken R is an intimate self-portrait of its Ecuadorian director, who, like his father, was born with Treacher Collins syndrome (TCS).  TCS is a rare genetic condition that affects the development of the bones and soft tissues of the face, often causing underdeveloped cheekbones, a small jaw and chin, downward‑slanting eyes, and abnormalities of the ears, sometimes with cleft palate and dental issues.  It commonly leads to conductive hearing loss, although intelligence is usually normal and life expectancy is typically not reduced.  Diagnosis is based on characteristic facial features, imaging, and sometimes genetic testing.

Treatment is tailored to the individual, which in Ricardo’s case has meant undergoing a number of gruelling surgeries, including complex dental procedures.  The film’s title refers to Ricardo’s longstanding difficulty in pronouncing the “r” sound (the blunter original title translates as “rhotacism”), which led him to avoid using words containing that letter and often resulted in others not catching his name correctly.  Speech therapy eventually resolved this issue for Ricardo, who notes that his father—also called Ricardo—is serenely accepting of life with TCS in a way that contrasts sharply with the filmmaker's outlook.

Which is not to say that TCS has got the better of Ricardo: he graduated from university in Ecuador before heading to Spain to undertake a master’s degree.  He's an honest, engaging narrator, and he is refreshingly open about his own perceived hang‑ups in the face of his parents’ pragmatism.  The Broken R highlights a generational divide, detailing the differing worldviews of Ricardo and his equally likeable father—a man who refuses to overthink life's problems.  Via a mix of film, digital, and VHS, Ricardo Ruales Eguiguren has created a deeply personal work, one whose impact is truly felt in the hours and days after viewing.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI / Festival Scope