New Movies

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...

Reviewed by Miranda Schiller @mirandadadada The opening film of the Berlin Film Festival, is an unambiguous celebration of film - Joel and Ethan Coen take on Old Hollywood in their newest all-star comedy, Hail Caesar. Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), a studio "fixer", runs from one emergency to the next in the chaotic world of the film business in the early 1950s, the later years of Hollywood's golden age. He gets the stars out of trouble, appeases irate directors, and keeps...

Review by Adam Turner/@AdamTurnerPR Happy, uplifting and easy-watching Chronic is not. In fact, It's more like being drenched by a cannon loaded with misery. However, Michel Franco's melancholic drama does help to bring to attention some of life's most agonising realities - from cancer and HIV to euthanasia, death and everything in between. Franco, best known for the disturbing After Lucia (2012), should be commended for bravely confronting such anxiety-provoking issues - many of which are seldom portrayed through the...

Pilou Asbæk & Tuva Novotny interviewed by Miranda Schiller/@mirandadadada War movies strive to obtain a sense of realism and immersion. Danish feature A War is no exception. With an exception of the leads, the cast is played by real danish soldiers who have been stationed in Afghanistan. Such a decision as not only helped provide its story a strong element of truth, but also helped establish the film with a certain amount of prestige. A War has been selected as the Danish...

Review by Ellery Nick @Ellery__Nick Brendon Gleeson plays Thomas Nickerson, last survivor of a doomed whaling voyage. He sets Ben Whishaw on his knee to recount his boyhood adventures and unburden himself of a dark secret. They occupy a spot lit space on the periphery of director Ron Howard’s story, which is set many years in the past. Whishaw is Herman Melville, a yet-to-be famous novelist who is consumed by talk of whales and sets about pumping Nickerson for the...