Young children are often very receptive to new ideas. In 1987 when my favourite toy was adapted into a Hollywood movie ’Masters of The Universe’ I lapped it up, even though the film played fast and loose with the He-Man story so familiar to me from the cartoons, tapes and books I made my mum buy me along with all those brightly coloured, muscly figurines. The hyper-consumerist 1980s was a (…) Continue Reading »

The film opens on an interview with Elliott, his voice characteristically unassuming, sincere and generous in spirit. "I’m the wrong kind of person," he says, "to be really big and famous." However, throughout we learn he did enjoy a certain (…) Continue Reading »

‘The Exhibitionists’ is a collection of films about collections. The series brings together four cinematic portraits of European museums; the Kunsthistorisches museum in Vienna, the National Gallery in London, Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum and The (…) Continue Reading »

Chris Rock gives an updated twist to the boy-meets-girl story here, playing Andre Allen, a not-so-funny-anymore-since-getting-sober comedian, as he promotes his first serious film ’Uprize’ on its opening night to a disinterested public. Gaining attention for a movie about the largest slave uprising in the New World is almost impossible and it’s clear from Andre’s promotional rounds that no (…) Continue Reading »

A campaign to save a legendary nightclub is the theme of two separate documentaries depicting the fight to save community and history from their demolition by property developers. The Starlite in Brooklyn, New York is the subject of Kate Kunath and Sasha Wortzel’s We Came To Sweat while the ongoing fight to Save the Tavern (specifically the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in South London) is the impetus (…) Continue Reading »

The Reed Short Film Awards were hosted by writer, TV and radio presenter and all-round funnyman Danny Wallace, who was certainly on top form last night. Introducing the shortlisted films, Wallace took the opportunity to celebrate the short format and the "admirable struggles" of short film makers ("making a short film is like watching a Danny Dyer film: awful"). The first screening of the (…) Continue Reading »

Interview with Antonio Piazza and Fabio Grassadonia, directors of Semaine de la Critique winner Salvo. Interview with Daria Belova, director of Come and Play (Komm und spiel) Continue Reading »

The title of Héctor Gálvez’s second feature film refers to the shorthand used to designate unidentified bodies, in this case, the unclaimed remains of a man exhumed by a team of forensic pathologists in Peru.Team leader Fidel is intrigued by an unspoilt black and white photograph of a young woman found in the pocket of the shirt worn by the victim and sets out to uncover his identity. The (…) Continue Reading »

Brussels’ Anima Festival kicked off with a masterclass presented by Disney 3D animator Marlon Nowe. Nowe was one of the lead animators on Frozen (2013) and created the online animation school Animsquad. I have found that Frozen’s world of shifting polygons and sophisticated material simulations hold none of the beauty found in the pre-CGI, hand-drawn Disney features. Clearly, a lineage is (…) Continue Reading »

To celebrate the opening of Bertha Dochouse at the Curzon Bloomsbury we sat down with Elizabeth Wood to hear her thoughts on the history of Dochouse and the future of documentary. How was DocHouse started? I started the company 12 years ago. It was getting increasingly difficult to see good international documentaries on mainstream telly and no one was showing them in London cinemas at (…) Continue Reading »