Author: The Reviews Hub - Film

Writer and Director: Sebaztian Baz Argentinian director Sebaztian Baz’s debut feature Sombras Chinas is completely moreish. It’s a vertical movie – meaning it’s all created in a series of micro episodes shot entirely in portrait format – TikTok-ready in other words. The central character is Cande, a young influencer documenting her whole life on social media, pouting for camera, posing sexily and blowing kisses at us, her viewers. Comments from her followers scroll endlessly up the left-hand side of the screen, while hearts of likes flow up the right. When things go wrong – and Cande’s girlish optimism frequently crashes…

Director: Hayao Miyazaki Kiki’s Delivery Service is a re-release of Studio Ghibli’s hugely successful 1989 animated fantasy film, now formatted for in 4K for IMAX. Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, it explores his key theme – a child’s journey from dependence to independence. Kiki is a witch on the brink of adolescence. It’s a full moon, the right moment, she realises, to follow the tradition for all thirteen-year-old witches: to leave her family and set off alone on a year’s journey. Off she goes with her black cat Jiji, enduring various comic mishaps as she learns to steer her…

Director: Frieda Luk The blurb for Sacred Creatures actually sounded great: beware the perils of magical thinking for, well, something bad is bound to happen if you believe that everything happens for a reason. The other promising factor was the film’s setting in the sun-drenched landscape of rural Italy, which felt perfect for a debut feature centered on the performance of non-mainstream American actress of half-Italian descent, Olivia Luccardi. And although the premise is somewhat familiar—a sister with emotional problems descends ever deeper into self-delusion, while her siblings try to keep her on this side of reality— you will be…

Borges and Me should really have been called “Me and Borges,” for it is less about the iconic Argentine writer and more about the non-titular character, PhD candidate Jay Parini, from whose memoir the screenplay was adapted. While that is not a weakness in itself, what is disappointing is that we never quite experience the fantastical world of magical realism associated with Borges’s imaginative short stories (especially as he is introduced as “the father of magical realism” with aplomb). Instead, we get a bucket list of his eccentricities, aphorisms and literary wit, all of which is colourful enough, certainly, but…

Director: Bart Simpson Harvey Kurtzman is possibly the most famous cartoonist UK audiences largely won’t have heard of, the founder and lead creator on a series of well-known American comics who gave plenty of recognisable names their start including Terry Gilliam and Crumb, while inspiring later satirists like Matt Groening. This very traditional biographical documentary screening at the Edinburgh International Film Festival looks ay Kurtzman’s life and legacy, arguing convincingly that the comic creator moved American satire from the grand political level to the detailed examination of everyday life. This 90-minute film by director Bart Simpson is framed in the…

Writers: Andrew Davis and Jennifer E. Montgomery Director: Jennifer E. Montgomery Catapulted into a leading role following success in Bridgerton and Sex Education, the always compelling Simone Ashley looks very comfortable in Andrew Davis and Jennifer E. Montgomery’s new thriller This Tempting Madness, a deeply silly if enjoyable story adapted from true events. There is enough psychological twistiness to give this tale of memory loss a bit of freshness but in focusing on the excellent lead, other characters, motivations and a proper examination of their lifestyle rather fade into the background leaving the audience with a too obvious outcome. Married…

 Writer and Director: Francesca McBride Emerging film-maker, and self-confessed “Shakespeare nerd”, Francesca McBride’s short film Lady Macbeth Was Never A Girl, brims with a quiet, watchful confidence. McBride’s film follows schoolgirl Jessica (played by McBride) as she navigates her day at a senior school. We are firmly in the 1990s: mobile phones are conspicuous by their absence. McBride argues that the rigidity of gender roles did not need a manosphere to flourish: they were already long established. Jessica and classmate Ashley (a coolly observant Eva Smith) sit through their English class: today they start studying Macbeth. Their teacher, Miss Fletcher…

Director: Phil Grabsky When you think of the artist David Hockney, your mind goes straight to those iconic 1960s portraits: cool, stylish and sun-soaked. First filmed in 2017, but re-launched to mark the death of Hockney earlier this year, Exhibition on Screen focuses not on Hockney’s back catalogue, but the art he was making in later life. In his 80th year, Hockney was not only looking at the future, but continuing to shape his artistic legacy. The EOS films normally celebrate an artist of the past, but with Hockney, they had a unique opportunity to witness a modern master at…