David Lynch: The Dreamer (1/1/26–1/2/26)

The BFI have announced details for their January season, David Lynch: The Dreamer, at London's BFI Southbank and IMAX (1 January–1 February), paying tribute to a true multidisciplinary artist and unique visionary.  Honouring Lynch’s enduring influence and legacy, the programme is a chance for reflection a year on from his passing and what would have been his 80th birthday.  The season includes his great masterpieces, his innovative short films and playful digital experiments, documentary portraits, including a preview of new documentary Welcome to Lynchland (Stéphane Ghez, 2025), plus a Twin Peaks-inspired immersive installation.  A selection of Lynch's films will also be available on BFI Player.

Although he was a certified grandmaster of the surreal, and frequently characterised as a maker of challenging films, the true defining quality of David Lynch’s work is its power to connect with audiences.  He crafted distinct dreamscapes, through his rich visuals, idiosyncratic music choices and haunting sound design, that are charged with human emotion, moving us to both frightening and nostalgic places and taking us on journeys to examine and understand the darkness that lurks under everyday pristine facades.  Lynch embraced a spectrum of creative outlets; unarguably one of the most influential filmmakers of the last 50 years, his brilliance reshaped cinema, television, music, art and the internet.

The season includes screenings of Eraserhead (1977), The Elephant Man (1980)—including a screening introduced by actor and filmmaker Dexter Fletcher on 27 January—Dune (1984), Blue Velvet (1986), Wild at Heart (1990), Lost Highway (1997), The Straight Story (1999), Mulholland Drive (2001) and Inland Empire (2006).  Fire Walk with Me (1992) and Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces (2014) will screen as a David Lynch birthday double bill on 20 January.  There’s also the opportunity to experience Lynch’s universe on the UK’s biggest screen at BFI IMAX, with screenings of Eraserhead (11 January), Blue Velvet (12 January), Wild at Heart (18 January), Mulholland Drive (25 January) and Lost Highway (1 February).

Source/images: BFI

Sofa, So Good (Kyle Thiele/Eli Thiele/Cole Thiele, 2024)

Sofa, So Good debuted at last year's edition of the Cleveland International Film Festival and has since enjoyed no less than three screenings at the London Film Festival, where it received its European premiere.  Written and directed by the Thiele Brothers (Kyle, Eli and Cole), the film is a slight mumblecore comedy that follows the exploits of two Ohio cousins who, after purchasing a second-hand sofa, find themselves struggling to transport it home.  What follows is a monochrome trek across the cousins' hometown, in which a routine task escalates into a byzantine journey replete with frustrating incidents and oddball characters.

The film's premise is as straightforward as it is relatable, exploring themes of friendship, determination, and the inherent vagaries of life.  It tells a story recognisable to anyone who has taken on a simple challenge that unexpectedly snowballed into a labyrinthine ordeal, and the Thiele Brothers have crafted a tale that encourages viewers to see the funny side of the quotidian hurdles we all face—or at the very least, find humour in the ways in which we might attempt to solve such problems.  The film's conclusion, while thuddingly predictable, is as absurd as what has come before, and reminds us not to take things too seriously.

This amusingly titled film could also be viewed as a microcosm of life as a whole: is each of us, in our own way, heaving the couch across town, and if so, to what avail?  Set and filmed entirely in and around the rust belt city of Dayton, Sofa, So Good was made—with the barest of skeleton crews—during the 2020 lockdown; as such, its weirdly unpopulated streets add to the surreal, off-kilter nature of a movie that maintains the same low-key pace for much of its brisk running time.  While it certainly doesn't deliver a surfeit of laughs, this engaging throwback nevertheless serves as a sturdy example of pandemic-era indie filmmaking.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI 

BFI Flare 2026 (18/3/26–29/3/26)

The BFI today announced the dates for the 2026 edition of BFI Flare.  The festival, which screens the best in contemporary LGBTQIA+ cinema from around the globe—in addition to a rich selection of events and archive titles—is celebrating its 40th year and will run from 18th–29th March 2026 at BFI Southbank.  This year’s festival sees the 12th year of #FiveFilmsForFreedom in partnership with the British Council.  This landmark initiative presents five films for free to audiences globally and invites everyone everywhere to show solidarity with LGBT communities in countries where freedom and equal rights are limited.

The 2025 FFFF selections came from Indonesia, New Zealand, the USA/China, and the UK, and the digital campaign attracted over 3 million views.  Since 2015, Five Films For Freedom has showcased 55 films over 132 days, reaching audiences of over 28 million in 220 countries and principalities.  The 2026 Five Films for Freedom shorts will be available to watch for free UK-wide on BFI Player.  Submissions for all film lengths for the 2026 edition of Flare are now open, and will close on Friday 5 December.  Further details will be revealed in the coming months, with the full programme set to be announced in February.

Source: BFI

Images: A24

IFFR 2026: First Cinema Regained Titles Announced

International Film Festival Rotterdam has unveiled its first selections for Cinema Regained, IFFR’s realm for rethinking film history, which will once again present recent restorations and works that offer new perspectives on cinema’s past.  Celebrating their world premieres at IFFR 2026 as part of the Cinema Regained programme will be Hungarian avant-garde master Péter Lichter’s The Thing in the Coffin (2026)—an appropriated footage version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula—and Ryan A. White and A.P. Pickle’s doc Mickey & Richard (2026).

Among the restorations featured, audiences will discover Tracing to Expo '70 (1970)—a dazzling mix of musical, travelogue and mystery, which looks at the first World Exposition held in Asia—and Gerald Potterton’s Tiki Tiki (1971), a crazy meta-movie featuring animated monkeys making a live-action Soviet-style fantasy epic.  Additional restorations will come from Brazil, Mexico and the Czech Republic, while further attempts at making new sense of film history will be provided by directors from Germany, France and Italy.

Vanja Kaludjercic, Festival Director at IFFR, said: "Cinema Regained reflects the way IFFR approaches cinema: by returning to works and histories that deserve a more attentive place in the conversation.  Cinema Regained continues to open up new ways of reading the past, presenting restorations, archival discoveries and experiments that shift how we understand film history.  This programme offers audiences a perspective that is informed, curious and grounded in the belief that cinema’s past remains essential to how we read the present".

Source/images: IFFR

The Ice Tower (Lucile Hadžihalilović, 2025)

Given that her career spans nearly 40 years, it is hard to believe that, prior to her remarkable new film The Ice Tower, Lucile Hadžihalilović had made just three feature films: Innocence (2004), Evolution (2015), and Earwig (2021).  In their respective years, all of these excellent Belgian co-productions played at the London Film Festival, and her latest film continued this trend with two screenings at the 2025 LFF.  But four features do not tell the whole story: in addition to making a few shorts, Hadžihalilović has produced several films directed by her partner and frequent collaborator Gaspar Noé—who has a notable acting role in The Ice Tower—including Lux Æterna, Vortex, and I Stand Alone, the last of which she also edited.

Earlier this year, the 70s-set The Ice Tower played as one of the silent screenings at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, which Hadžihalilović attended 20 years after Innocence was selected for the same event.  While the latter film has often been described as a dark fairy tale, Hadžihalilović’s latest effort is more directly inspired by the work of the master of the genre, Hans Christian Andersen.  As with all of her previous features, The Ice Tower focuses firmly on children, following runaway orphan Jeanne (Clara Pacini), who takes shelter in a film studio where an adaptation of Andersen’s 1844 short story "The Snow Queen"—starring the haughty Cristina (Marion Cotillard) in the title role—is in production.

Jeanne is fascinated by both the fairy story and the lead actress, and once the teenager’s presence in the studio becomes known, Cristina begins to reciprocate her attention.  It is by no means a symmetrical relationship—as one might expect, the imperious Cristina clearly calls the shots—but the two develop a strange bond as the film shoot progresses (a bewigged Noé is good value as the slightly seedy director of the film-within-the-film).  Just as Cristina is inhabiting a role, Jeanne—thanks to a stolen ID—also adopts a persona of her own, assuming the name Bianca.  The game between the pair is as engrossing as it is disconcerting, and newcomer Pacini impresses opposite the Oscar-winning Cotillard.

The Ice Tower (French: La tour de glace), true to its title, is glacially paced, but it is also a hypnotic, immersive, and deeply unsettling work.  As the film advances, the worlds inside and outside of "The Snow Queen" begin to overlap, eventually shifting back and forth so fluidly that they become almost impossible to separate.  Hadžihalilović's meticulous mise-en-scène is greatly enhanced by the work of Earwig’s returning cinematographer, Jonathan Ricquebourg (also DoP on the Larrieu brothers’ Tralala), who expertly captures the wintry light that envelops both realms featured here.  The Ice Tower feels like the ultimate refinement of what Lucile Hadžihalilović has been developing throughout her impeccable feature film career; this is a, ahem, towering piece of real cinema from a major filmmaker.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI

The North (Bart Schrijver, 2025)

The North, the new feature film from Dutch director-producer Bart Schrijver, has been shortlisted for the European Film Awards.  The film has received an incredible response in a very short space of time: this year alone, the film has enjoyed theatrical runs in Luxembourg, Belgium, and Schrijver’s native Netherlands—where the film has already been viewed by over 115,000 people, making it only the second Dutch film this year to achieve such viewing figures.  The film also hit the number one spot in the Dutch Arthouse Top 30 for seven weeks.  Alongside The North, the team created a documentary, True North.

A decade after being best friends and roommates, Chris (Bart Harder) and Lluis (Carles Pulido) set out on a 600-kilometre hike through the Scottish Highlands.  Following the West Highland Way and the Cape Wrath Trail, they spend 30 days together in nature, hoping to rekindle their once-powerful friendship.  But while Chris remains preoccupied with work and life back home, Lluis is determined to finish the trail to prove he can do it.  The solitude and silence of the Highlands forces them to confront harsh truths about themselves, their friendship, and what it truly means to stand still and listen.

Written and directed by Schrijver, who co-produced with Arnold Janssen and Tom Holscher, The North was made for a mere €75,000 with a cast and crew of only eight people.  The team at Tuesday Studio, the production company behind the film, originally planned to simply sell the film online on their own TVOD website; however, after a glowing four-star review from The Guardian, everything changed.  More glowing coverage followed, including a piece in De Standaard, and the ball kept rolling until it landed at the doorstep of the European Film Academy, who shortlisted the project in the Feature Film category.

Schrijver began his career while studying architecture.  Using his first short films as his film school, he directed five shorts in his first year as a fiction director.  Since making the leap from short films to feature-length projects proved challenging, he co-founded a new production company, Tuesday Studio, with Janssen and Holscher.  In 2022, he launched his first project with Tuesday Studio, Human Nature, a film based on his 700-kilometre hike in Arctic Norway.  Schrijver combines his love for nature with his passion for filmmaking; to date, he has created 12 films and has hiked more than 5000 kilometres.

Source/images: Polymath PR

Those Whom Death Refused (Flora Gomes, 1988)

Bissau-Guinean filmmaker Flora Gomes' Those Whom Death Refused (original title: Mortu Nega), which screens in a restored print on Saturday at the BFI London Film Festival, is an arresting portrait of independence and its aftermath.  This keystone of postcolonial African cinema blends documentary techniques with an almost Malick-like lyricism as it focuses on one woman’s ordeal, all the while prioritising mood over conventional narrative.  Set during the Guinea-Bissau war of independence against Portugal and the turbulent years that followed, the haunting Those Whom Death Refused expertly conveys the weight of history.

The 1970s-set film follows Diminga (Bia Gomes), who edges her way through war-ravaged landscapes to find her soldier husband Sako (Tunu Eugenio Almada).  Through Diminga's eyes, Flora Gomes deftly builds a story that examines the psychological burden of conflict on women, and, by bringing Diminga to the forefront of the film, neatly subverts our expectations of an 80s war movie.  Once the war has been won, drought and political instability provide a much-needed reminder that the struggle—albeit one of a very different kind—continues long after the colonial powers have left, as the new nation finds its feet.

The first half of the film is a lean, taut affair, one that underlines the asymmetrical nature of the guerrilla forces taking on the Portuguese, with the latter's helicopters raining down bullets on a makeshift army scampering across the ground.  While it's obvious that the budget for Guinea-Bissau's very first feature film is not particularly high, the action scenes are well mounted, and Gomes manages the tension with style.  The film loosens its grip once both the war and its combat scenes are over, with Gomes observing, with an at times near-ethnographic eye, a newly postcolonial country gingerly feeling its way into independence.

As the film gives way to this more contemplative tone, Gomes captures the landscape of post-war Guinea-Bissau as an almost stone tape-like vessel of memory, with sweeping shots of the countryside reflecting both the scars of war and the immutability of the land.  While Those Whom Death Refused runs to a relatively brief 93 minutes, the film is measured, at times slow, which might make the going tough for those unaccustomed to such cinematic grammar.  But this elliptical rhythm dictates the pace of the storytelling, carving out space for a stillness that acts as a most welcome counterpoint to the political Sturm und Drang.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI

Balearic (Ion de Sosa, 2025)

Saint John’s Eve provides the backdrop for Basque director Ion de Sosa's Balearic, which screens tomorrow at the BFI London Film Festival.  La Noche de San Juan, as it's known in Spain, is a midsummer celebration held on the night of 23rd June.  It has arcane roots, fusing ancient pagan sun rituals that pay homage to the year's longest day with Christian traditions marking the birth of Saint John the Baptist.  Saint John’s Eve is especially popular in coastal areas, where revellers gather to light huge bonfires symbolising purification, prior to bathing in the sea, which represents both Jesus' baptism and the concept of renewal.

Balearic gets off to a strong start as four teenagers—three girls and one boy—wander into the grounds of an isolated, seemingly unoccupied mansion.  After some casual chatter, the group decide to take a dip in the villa’s pool, but their fun is cut short when three vicious guard dogs appear.  One of the girls, who happens to be out of the water when the dogs arrive, is savagely attacked and suffers severe injuries.  Although her friends manage to drag her back into the pool, the dogs—curiously unwilling to enter the water—block all available exits, leaving the teens stranded and terrified as one of them slowly bleeds out.

As we're waiting to see how the situation is resolved, the film abruptly cuts to another villa, seemingly not far from the first, where a group of adult friends have gathered to mark the holiday by eating, drinking, and talking.  These people—for whom the label "idle rich" seems wholly appropriate—appear curiously detached from the outside world and strangely indifferent to a wildfire that has started in a nearby forest; one surreal scene shows a firefighting helicopter replenishing its supplies by scooping water from the pool around which these partygoers are sitting.  Alas, if only it had visited another house to do this.

De Sosa's emphasis on both fire and water—two elements that feature so prominently in Saint John's Eve celebrations—forms the foundation of a social critique in which one generation sits pretty while the next is, quite literally, left to the dogs.  This is an intelligent, risky piece of filmmaking, one in which the bold decision to move from the teens' ordeal to something much more diffuse and elusive—the poolside scenes featuring the adults feel almost loose-limbed—might alienate some.  But this nagging, unsettling work, superbly shot on tactile 16mm by Cristina Neira, retains a peculiar grip throughout its brief running time.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI

The Deal (Jean-Stéphane Bron, 2025)

The Deal is a six-part TV series that tells the story of the 2015 US-Iran nuclear negotiations, which took place in the very neutral state that is Switzerland.  Focusing on Geneva-based chief of protocol Alexandra Weiss (Belgian actress Veerle Baetens), the show—the first two episodes of which screen today at the BFI London Film Festival—provides an engrossing insight into these sensitive diplomatic talks.  The entire series is directed by Jean-Stéphane Bron, and this material feels a particularly good fit for a filmmaker who became known for his political documentaries—including L'expérience Blocher—before branching into fiction.

Weiss is a sort of diplomatic factotum, and the early stretches of the show focus on her seemingly endless duties as she attempts to smooth the ground for the negotiations.  She's serious, measured, and does her utmost to remain unruffled—even when being talked down to by Fenella Woolgar's ghastly EU delegate.  It is difficult to imagine the rather inscrutable Alexandra having any kind of private life, but this all changes with the introduction of her ex, Iranian scientist-engineer Payam Sanjabi (Arash Marandi), who has been released from prison so that he can play a role in the discussions; suddenly, we see a different side to her.

Sanjabi's arrival demonstrates how the series deftly combines the personal with the political, an aspect of the show that is underlined by a fraught telephone call between the US Secretary of State (Juliet Stevenson) and her aging, ailing mother.  The ever-dependable Stevenson is good value in the part, and her scenes with her Iranian counterpart (Anthony Azizi)—who doesn't consider her his equal—crackle and fizz in a way that adds real dramatic heft to the proceedings.  There's also a notable role for André Marcon, an actor perhaps best known for his work with Jacques Rivette, including the epic two-part film Joan the Maid.

But The Deal is glued together by Veerle Baetens, who excels as the put-upon Alexandra.  She's an assured, magnetic presence, and one suspects that her recent experience behind the camera—her directorial debut, the Belgian-Dutch co-production Het smelt, won Best Flemish Film at last year's Magritte Awards—has helped her further refine her technique as a performer.  Baetens carries the series with this complex character, one who must always remain impartial as the often bullish participants—who appear more concerned with not losing face than reaching an agreement—constantly threaten to derail the negotiations.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI

Sirāt (Óliver Laxe, 2025)

As with Galician director Óliver Laxe's previous film, Fire Will Come, his latest effort, Sirāt, will screen at the BFI IMAX as part of the BFI London Film Festival, where it plays on Monday in the Dare strand.  Following its outing on the UK's biggest screen, Sirāt will receive a second showing on Tuesday at the ICA.  The fact that both Fire Will Come and Sirāt have been programmed in the IMAX says much about Laxe's films, which are immersive, transportive experiences.  Yet this new work is quite a different beast from its predecessor: Fire Will Come exemplified slow cinema, whereas Sirāt possesses a tense, driving narrative.

In Sirāt, Sergi López delivers a knockout turn as Luis, a father desperately searching for his missing daughter, Mar.  Luis' quest has taken him and his young son, Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona), from their native Spain to southern Morocco, where they attend an outdoor rave in the hope of learning something about Mar's whereabouts.  As the pair circulate through the party, handing out fliers and questioning indifferent attendees while blaring trance music hampers their efforts, the scene feels extremely familiar; it’s clear that everyone Luis approaches will barely glance at the photo before claiming never to have seen his daughter.

The missing person trope has been heavily overused in cinema, but here Laxe cleverly uses it to draw the viewer in.  After Luis notices a group of five people sequestered from the rest of the partygoers, he decides to ask them about Mar.  The answer is quite predictable, but there is mention of another rave that might be happening much deeper in the desert.  The group seems rather guarded when Luis asks if they’ll be attending, and the current event is abruptly broken up by soldiers declaring a state of emergency.  As all the vehicles line up, waiting to leave, the quintet flee the scene, and Luis, urged on by Esteban, follows them.

The father and son—accompanied by their very cute dog, Pipa—are in a small van that is not ideally equipped for the Moroccan desert, yet they generally manage to keep pace with the two much larger trucks as the caravan treks through increasingly inhospitable terrain.  As Laxe builds this strange, isolated world, it becomes easy to forget about the absent Mar—and you soon realise that the hunt for her is little more than a MacGuffin.  Shot on tactile Super 16mm stock, the shattering Sirāt is a quite brilliant piece of sensorial filmmaking, one punctuated by a couple of jaw-dropping moments that will shake you to your very core.

Darren Arnold

Images: Pyramide Films

John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office (2025)

Michael Almereyda and Courtney Stephens' documentary John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office, which was selected for this year's International Film Festival Rotterdam, continues its run on the fest circuit with screenings at the BFI London Film Festival, where it plays today and tomorrow as part of the Debate strand.  It's now been more than 30 years since David Lynch stepped in to save the production of Almereyda's black-and-white vampire flick Nadja—Lynch funded the entire film after the initial financing fell through—a witty, highly stylised work that brought its director into the arthouse spotlight.

Since then, Almereyda has continued making narrative features, several of which—including his most recent effort, the biopic Tesla—have starred Ethan Hawke, but he's also no stranger to documentary, having directed the likes of This So-Called Disaster, William Eggleston in the Real World and Escapes.  John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office, co-directed with Courtney Stephens (Invention, The American Sector), sees Almereyda once again embrace non-fiction as he and Stephens essay the strange tale of the dolphin-bothering neuroscientist of the title, whose work inspired a classic video game.

Lilly is best remembered for both his invention of the isolation tank and his attempts at establishing communication between humans and dolphins.  It is hard to say which of these projects was the more outlandish: the former has endured as a means for those seeking sensory deprivation, while the latter gained a lot of publicity yet yielded no notable legacy.  The received wisdom about dolphins is that they are highly intelligent mammals that possess advanced cognitive skills, but Lilly believed they were also capable of language acquisition, and conducted countless cruel experiments on these fine marine animals.

If floatation tanks and talking dolphins aren't sufficiently outré, also consider Lilly's LSD and ketamine-fuelled insistence that there was a cosmic entity—the Earth Coincidence Control Office, or ECCO, of the title—managing earth's inhabitants.  Lilly coasted through his life and career on the back of a seemingly bottomless trust fund, and died in 2001 at the age of 86.  What, if any, value can be placed on his crackpot theories is something Almereyda and Stephens appear to be on the fence about, yet this doesn't prevent John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office from being a hugely entertaining and engrossing 90 minutes.

Darren Arnold

Images: Festival Scope

Fwends (Sophie Somerville, 2025)

Fwends, the debut feature from Australian filmmaker Sophie Somerville, follows twentysomething friends Em (Emmanuelle Mattana) and Jessie (Melissa Gan), who embark on an often surreal odyssey through Melbourne as they attempt to reconnect with each other over the course of a weekend.  Somerville's film—which screens tomorrow and Friday at the BFI London Film Festival as part of the Laugh strand—taps into the same vein as Mike Leigh's somewhat overlooked 1997 film Career Girls, a deeply profound exploration of two old college flatmates reuniting after six years of adult life has put their friendship on hold.

As with Leigh's a deceptively slight film—which also unfolds during a single weekend—Fwends, at least in its early stages, uses humour to mask the pathos.  The story begins with Jessie and Em searching for each other in a Melbourne Metro station; Em is visiting from Sydney, where she has a demanding job at a law firm, and Melburnian Jessie, who has spent several years travelling the world, is dealing with a difficult breakup from her boyfriend.  It soon transpires that Em has been experiencing sexual harassment at work, and she's unsure what—if anything—she should do about it, lest it derail the career she's built for herself.

Both women, it seems, could really use this break from their respective worries—although it's not clear what they'll do, as Jessie has not made any plans for the weekend, nor has she gone to the trouble of organising suitable bedding for her houseguest.  But the situation regarding the sleeping arrangements becomes moot once the pair, upon returning from dinner, find they are locked out of Jessie's apartment; Jessie thinks she's left her keys in the restaurant, which has now closed for the day, and while her ex still has a key to the flat, he's since relocated to Brisbane.  Cue an After Hours-style schlep around nocturnal Melbourne.

Gan and Mattana—both of whom are terrific in what is essentially a two-hander—are given writing credits alongside Somerville, and this alludes to the Leigh-like improvisational nature of the project.  But Fwends is no pale imitation; rather, Somerville's own cinematic voice is present here, and she's expertly captured the awkwardness that comes with seeing an old friend for the first time in years.  Somerville highlights both the silent gap that lies between these women and the painful inevitability of this time-induced schism, and her film is infused with a melancholy that makes the final shot almost unbearably poignant.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI

Sebastian (Mikko Mäkelä, 2024)

Directed by the Finnish-British filmmaker Mikko Mäkelä (A Moment in the Reeds), this uneven Belgian co-production depicts a budding novelist's often perilous journey through the underbelly of London, in the hope that he'll find both himself and the inspiration for his first book.  Set against the backdrop of the English capital's bustling streets, Sebastian follows the life of Max, impressively played by the Scots actor Ruaridh Mollica.  Max is a twentysomething magazine staff writer originally from Scotland's capital city, Edinburgh, to where he briefly returns in what might be viewed as one of the film's more poignant scenes.

Not that there are many such moments in Sebastian.  To describe Mäkelä's film as pitiless is perhaps something of a stretch, yet there's a cold, clinical feel to much of the movie, which is maybe understandable given the transactional nature of Max's double life as a sex worker.  This decision is driven not so much by his financial situation, but is rather rooted in the quest for authenticity in his writing.  For this research, Max uses the alias Sebastian, as per the title, and although he knows exactly where the line of demarcation is, he's still playing a dangerous game, one that could go very wrong should any of his clients discover the truth.

Max's approach is marked by both sensitivity and resolve, and the film offers a narrative that confronts the audience's views on morality and inspiration: who, if anyone, is doing the using?  There are no clear or easy answers to be had as we're presented with the uneasy sight of Max feverishly jotting down details of his encounters, sometimes just after they've happened.  Any given person's feelings about Max's practices are quite likely to line up with their opinion of Brooke Magnanti's blog-turned-book The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl—a work that, at least on a superficial level, has much in common with Sebastian.

The film's portrayal of sexuality is reasonably ambitious, offering a fresh perspective when it could very easily have been content to deal in familiar tropes.  Among Max's roster of almost invariably seedy clients is the gentle Nicholas (Jonathan Hyde), an educated, older man more in need of companionship and intelligent conversation than the services Max typically provides.  Hyde is wonderfully sympathetic in this role, and it is through his scenes with Mollica that the mostly unpleasant Sebastian achieves some rare (and much-needed) moments of tenderness, which feel all the sweeter given the morass that surrounds them.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI 

The Weekend (Daniel Oriahi, 2024)

The Weekend played at last year's Slash Film Festival and has since enjoyed no less than three screenings at the 2024 London Film Festival, where it received its UK premiere as part of the LFF's Cult strand, which also featured the likes of Noémie Merlant's The Balconettes and Nic Cage-starrer The Surfer.  Directed by the prolific filmmaker Daniel Oriahi (Sylvia, Taxi Driver: Oko Ashewo, Zena), The Weekend is a Nollywood horror that has the potential to travel way beyond its domestic market and the festival circuit, and it showcases a genre that has been gradually establishing itself in Nigerian cinema, yet seldom with such focus.

Buoyed by its selection for the 2024 edition of New York's Tribeca Film Festival, The Weekend cleaned up at the local box office and secured a record 16 nominations for the Africa Movie Academy Awards, from which it won four prizes (Best Film, Best Nigerian Film, Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography).  The film delves into the complex dynamics of in-law relationships as it focuses on Nikiya (Uzoamaka Aniunoh), an orphaned woman desperate to fill the void with the family of her fiancé Luc (Bucci Franklin), who, in contrast, wants to maintain the mysterious schism between himself and his parents.

Of course, there wouldn't be much of a film if the insistent Nikiya didn't get her way, and Luc eventually acquiesces to his fiancée's demands.  Opening in medias res, the story, as per the title, unfolds over the course of a weekend as Nikiya and Luc attend the celebrations for the latter's parents' wedding anniversary.  In addition to Luc's mother (Gloria Young) and father (Keppy Ekpenyong), the gathering includes his big sister Kama (Meg Otanwa) and her abusive boyfriend Zeido (James Gardiner), a self-proclaimed "man of substance" who seems a very unlikely candidate to survive the festivities once dark family secrets begin to emerge.

Solidly written by Freddie O. Anyaegbunam Jr., Vanessa Kanu and Egbemawei Dimiyei Sammy, The Weekend saw Oriahi board the project after the previous director dropped out.  Working with the biggest budget of his career to date, Oriahi shot the movie in just three weeks, and the result is generally impressive—although some judicious editing would have helped.  The film deals in familiar horror tropes, albeit ones reframed in a Nigerian setting, and while it's far from bloodless, gorehounds will have to look elsewhere for their fix.  Still, The Weekend's sly sense of humour ensures there's some ghoulish fun to be had here.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI 

Mother Vera (Cécile Embleton / Alys Tomlinson, 2024)

The legendary French director Robert Bresson had a profound relationship with spirituality that ran through his films, which often explored themes of redemption and hermeneutical struggle, all the while reflecting his Catholic upbringing and experiences as a prisoner of war.  Bresson's highly austere work conveyed a deep sense of faith and a near-pantheistic belief in the presence of God in nature; his singular cinematic style, which favoured minimalism and the use of non-professional actors, aimed to decode the mysteries behind quotidian life.  All of which feels very relevant when viewing the stark, ascetic documentary Mother Vera, which was mainly shot on the wintry outskirts of the Belarusian capital Minsk.

Mother Vera is a poignant, visually arresting work that follows the life of a young Orthodox nun, tracing her journey from a tumultuous past to an uncertain, if hopeful, future.  Cécile Embleton and Alys Tomlinson's stately film opens in the thick snow of a Belarusian forest, an icy monochrome setting that immediately nails down the tone for the story of seclusion and redemption that follows; soon, we are introduced to the remote monastery that houses the Vera of the title.  A former addict once known as Olga, Vera has a keen affinity for horses, a calling which will eventually take her far from brumal Belarus to the sun-kissed Camargue, the southern French region known for its eponymous, striking equine breed.

The directors have crafted a documentary that frequently feels like a piece of narrative cinema, one whose Bressonian pace allows the audience to immerse themselves in the depiction of cloistered life.  The decision to shoot primarily in black and white lends an oneiric quality to the film, although a jarring coda in colour comes close to breaking the spell cast by what's preceded it.  Mother Vera is not just about Vera's inner world—it also explores the community that played a crucial role in her rehabilitation, and delves into the wider themes of recovery and the search for meaning.  The cinematography (by Embleton) is particularly impressive, with the camera often training on details such as a horse's hooves.

These stunning, sensorial shots help deepen our understanding of Vera's place in her environment (Bresson's spiritual heir Bruno Dumont pulled off a similar feat in his startling debut feature The Life of Jesus).  The influence of classic Soviet cinema is very much in evidence here, with the film's visual language echoing that of Tarkovsky; languid scenes allow the imagery to seep into the viewer's consciousness, creating a rhythm that dictates the pace of the storytelling.  Mother Vera is a meditative exploration of both the mysteries of faith and the depths of the human condition; this haunting film manages to be at once probing and reticent as it challenges the viewer to evaluate their own place in the world.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI