Author: The Reviews Hub - Film

Writer: David Jařab Director: Viktor Tauš Viktor Tauš’ absurdist and surrealist film is a tale of a single orphanage in Soviet era Czechoslovakia and its aftermath, becoming an obsession for one woman who spent a lot of her childhood there. A striking if often baffling visual approach, Amerikánka (Girl America) is an obsession with freedom represented in the idea of the United States and the hope the central character retains that she will one day travel there and somehow recover all the personal losses that punctuate her young and deeply eventful life. When their mother disappears, Ema is taken into…

Director: Theodora Remundová There’s plenty to enjoy in this touching full-length documentary about a Czech national treasure, actor Iva Janžurová, directed by her daughter. No prior knowledge of Iva is required; her magnetism, talent and soulful view of the world are in evidence throughout. Theodora Remundová’s relaxed style feeds through to the finished movie as she gently prompts her mum to reflect on episodes from her life and career. Appearing on camera, Theodora seems to revel in the caustic little jokes Iva makes, which are always laced with affection. Iva’s story mirrors the post-second world war landscape. Czech and Slovak…

Writers: Jun Kurosawa, Akihiro Suzuki and Toshiko Takashi Director: Akihiro Suzuki This strange and haunting film from 1999 documents the lost boys of Tokyo: the porn stars, the rent boys and their pimps. Stories are embedded within stories, each mournful and desolate and some peter out into nothing, very much like life itself. Looking for an Angel was director Akihiro Suzuki’s debut film, and its portrait of sex work and the loneliness that often comes with it is deftly and elegiacally captured. Reiko and Shinpei attend a wake for their friend Takachi at the house of a porn film director.…

Writers: Mikaël Olliver, Petr Jarchovský and Barbora Drevikovska Director: Kristina Dufková This charming stop-animation film about an overweight teenager living in the Czech Republic is hard to resist. Full of wonderfully created characters and cute animals, Living Large is sure to please both adults and children. Without preaching, Kristina Dufková’s film suggests that while most of us could lose some pounds, happiness should be our eventual goal. Ben Pipetka lives with his veterinary mother. Their apartment is a veritable menagerie; a chameleon which can never quite catch a fly with its long tongue, a snake that needs measuring and a…

Writers: Tomás Bojar, Nadja Dumouchel and Zuzana Kirchnerová  Director: Zuzana Kirchnerová Sparse, uncomfortable and compelling, the Cannes Un Certain Regard selected film Caravan is intriguingly unpredictable. A single mother from the Czech Republic, along with her son, who has learning disabilities, steals a campervan and drives to the Calabrian coast in Italy to escape the disapproval of her old friend, now married to a rich Italian. Zuzana Kirchnerová’s debut feature is brave and unflinching. When teenage David trashes the house of his mother’s friend, he is exiled to the campervan that is parked outside the grand mansion. His mother, Ester,…

Writer: Andrew Gallimore and John Kelleher Director: Andrew Gallimore and Lydia Monin Ireland is a close neighbour to, and shares a language with, England so comparisons of differences between the two countries are always interesting. Whereas classification and censorship of films in England is the responsibility of a neutral organisation- The British Board of Film Classification- in Ireland the process was, for years, subjective, the role of a single individual, as is apparent in the title of Andrew Gallimore and Lydia Lydia Monin’s documentary In The Opinion of The Censor. The last person to hold the post of censor, John…

Writer: Paul Fraser Directors: Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros D’Sa In 2002, Ireland’s football captain walked away from his World Cup team less than two weeks before the tournament began and refused to return. The team under manager Mick McCarthy were in Saipan close to Japan preparing for the event in Tokyo and this is the story of why Roy Keane, then one of the UK and Ireland’s most famous players, left the national side. Not entirely sure quite where it wants to land on Keane’s decision or personality, Paul Fraser’s narrative film screening at the Irish Film Festival London…

Writers: Aoife Kelleher and Rachel Lysaght Director: Aoife Kelleher The Irish Film Festival London has done a huge amount to foreground women’s stories not only in its features but through the important documentary strand, and in recent years has focused on the Debenhams workers who spent the pandemic picketing the Dublin store when the failing brand tried to cheat them out of an acceptable redundancy package, and on former President Mary Robinson who did much to advance representation in political roles. This year Aoife Kelleher and Rachel Lysaght cover the fight to recognise the human rights of incarcerated women in…