Film Reviews

by Miranda Schiller @mirandadadada “The Right to Happiness”, this year’s Berlinale motto, is clearly linked to the one most talked about topic in the German media this year: Refugees. Donation boxes for the Berlin Centre for Torture Victims in every cinema, various programmes to help refugees in Berlin, from free tickets to school projects to traineeships, are the concrete ways the Berlinale participates in the effort to welcome refugees. Even George Clooney, star of the opening film “Hail, Caesar!”, has...

Reviewed by Miranda Schiller @mirandadadada Kate and Justin are expecting their first child when new neighbours move into the downstairs flat of their converted terraced house. The new couple, Theresa  (Laura Birn) and Jon, are also expecting a child. While Theresa is full of joy at the prospect of being a mother, Kate (Clémence Poésy) is insecure and fearful about her ability to cope with the responsibility for a child. She quickly warms to the outgoing Theresa and a friendship...

Review and round table interview with director Morgan Neville by Miranda Schiller @mirandadadada After meeting world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma and succumbing to his charm, documentary filmmaker Morgan Neville set out to document his ensemble of musicians from around the world, playing traditional instruments of their home countries, and morphing all these different traditions together to make something entirely new. Yo-Yo Ma's charm is hard not to succumb to, and Neville's storytelling is as light-footed, smooth and masterful as in his...

Reviewed by Miranda Schiller @mirandadadada Spike Lee's latest, the hip-hop musical Chi-Raq, re-interprets the ancient Greek play Lysistrata by Aristophanes: Lystistrata is a beautiful woman who helps end a war by convincing every woman in town to go on a sex-strike until the men stop battling and sign a peace contract. Spike Lee transfers the story from Ancient Greece to modern-day Chicago, called Chi-Raq because more Americans have been murdered there than have died in the Iraq war in the...

Reviewed by Miranda Schiller @mirandadadada   It's not often that a film from Saudi Arabia hits the screens over here, in fact, this is the first ever film from Saudi Arabia to play at the Berlinale. No wonder, as there are no cinemas and watching films is considered a sin, there isn't much of a film industry. All the bigger was the surprise when Barakah meets Barakah turned out to be a romantic comedy – not the genre you'd expect....

  Review and round table interview with director Mohammed Ben Attia by Miranda Schiller @mirandadadada   Hedi is 25 and about to get married. He works as a travelling car salesman, driving around his homeland Tunisia trying to get companies to buy Peugeots - in vain, the economy isn't good, but Hedi also isn't a good salesman. He shows no interest in his job, or his marriage, or anything for that matter. His mother arranges his life for him: Not...

Reviewed by Miranda Schiller @mirandadadada   Natalie (Isabelle Huppert) is a high school philosophy teacher, and although she spends a great deal reading and thinking about freedom and the best way of life, her own life takes place in rather narrow limits. Like, as she says, most intellectuals of her generation, she used to have radical ideas in her youth, even travelled to the USSR, but she has long left desires of starting a revolution behind and is comfortable in...

Reviewed by Miranda Schiller @mirandadadada “It's not science fiction”, says the US Air Force recruitment video. And thousands of young Americans are seduced by the idea of adventure and honour and join up. Like Heather, whose job it was to analyse drone imagery. All day long she'd watch Afghans go about their daily lives, trying to make out if they were civilians or targets. She'd watch them be blown to pieces, she'd watch civilians die, soldiers die. Even though she...

Reviewed by Miranda Schiller @mirandadadada A young boy is kidnapped and sped along the highway through the Southern US States in a 1970s Chevrolet. But his kidnappers are his father and a good friend, saving the boy from religious fanatics. Nothing is what it seems in Midnight Special. Slowly we learn what is special about young Alton Meyer, why both the FBI and a religious cult are interested in him, why he is wearing protective goggles and is never allowed...