Author: The Reviews Hub - Film

Writer: Saumyananda Sahi from a story by Tanushree Das Directors: Tanushree Das and Saumyananda Sahi Although Shadowbox, directed by Tanushree Das and Saumyananda Sahi and scripted by the latter, has elements of a thriller at heart the film is a domestic drama. In the suburbs of Kolkatta (formerly Calcutta) Maya (Tillotama Shome) has married beneath her social station. Although Maya is college educated and from an affluent family her husband Sundar (Chandan Bisht) is a humble infantryman. As if to confirm the reservations of Maya’s family, Sundar has returned from army service with Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) making him incapable…

Writer: Sophie Hyde Directors: Matthew Cormack and Sophie Hyde For most 16-year-olds, discovering their sexuality and openly discussing it, their lack of sexual experience and ongoing considerations of their gender identity, talking about it openly with their mother but also with their grandfather would be deeply mortifying. However, for Frances it becomes the centrepiece for a coming-of-age story set in Amsterdam when an Australian family travel to Europe to stay with “Jimpa.” Sophie Hyde’s two hour film about the challenges between different generations of the LGBTQIA+ community, family secrets and the difficulties of finding space in the world whatever your…

Director: Orban Wallace With extreme and unyielding opinion on both sides of the debate, Orban Wallace’s new documentary Our Land about the right to roam follows the official campaigners as well as a number of landowners over a short period who each make their case as to why what they are asking for is perfectly reasonable. With statistics to hand, the campaigners note that only 8% of British land has total public access which in some senses is a shocking figure but Wallace’s film never puts the parties together to really discuss the core issues, leaving the viewer feeling that…

Director: Sang-il Lee Writers: Satoko Okudera and Shûichi Yoshida This nearly three-hour epic, based on the 2018 novel by Shûichi Yoshida, has been a huge hit in Japan. The title means ‘national treasure’. The film tells the story of two boys learning the art of kabuki theatre under the harsh tutelage of a master, Hanjiro Hanai (Ken Watanabe). Under the kabuki tradition, his son Shunsuke (Ryûsei Yokohama and when young, Keitatsu Koshiyama) is born to the trade, whereas protagonist Kikuo (Ryô Yoshizawa and Soya Kurokawa) has been specially taken in after his gangland father’s violent death. The movie has a…

Writer and Director: Park Joon-ho The brief opening scene of two Korean men having sex suggests that this coming-of-age story will be a steamy affair, but the rest of Park Joon-ho’s debut feature is surprisingly chaste. Instead of the search for sex, 3670 centres on the search for friendship in Seoul, which, despite its circuit of gay bars and karaoke joints, is a lonely city, especially for North Korean defector Cheol-jun. Supported by a church charity, Cheol-jun is trying to make Seoul his new home. He works in a convenience store while studying English and applying to a university. Every…

Writer and Director: Yihwen Chen As much about Malaysia as it is about the queer Punk Rock band Shh…Diam! (“Shut Up” in Malay), Yihwen Chen’s documentary spanning the years between 2018 and 2022 is an absorbing if sobering watch. Finding a charming subject in lead singer Faris, Queer as Punk demonstrates how difficult it is to be a trans man in a country which still discriminates against queer individuals. These homophobic and transphobic laws are, in a big part, due to colonial times and British Rule. However, queer people are also subject to another legal system entirely: that of Sharia…

Writer and Director: Kunsang Kyirong In 100 Sunset writer / director Kunsang Kyirong employs a number of techniques which immerse the viewer in the film’s immigrant neighbourhoods to the extent it is possible to share the sense of displacement experienced by people adjusting to a new homeland. Kunsel (Tenzin Kunsel) has recently settled in the Tibetan neighbourhood of Parkdale in Toronto. She lives with her family in an apartment at 100 Sunset. Her father is something of a financial fixer for the neighbourhood, organising a Dukuti, a community-based rotating credit practice where members contribute money into a shared pool that…

Writer, Director and Editor: Colin Hickey Animator: Paolo Chianta Perennial Light is a strange, haunting film, written, directed and edited by Colin Hickey. Shot in black and white it tells its story without dialogue, relying on patterns of images and sound. Juliet Martin supervises an evocative soundscape, often consisting of a repeated six-note musical phrase, interspersed with the sound of a cow bell, or bursts of Spanish classical music. There natural sounds too which are strangely at odds with the visuals. So, for instance, we hear howling wind while watching a peaceful sunlit scene A repeated section where the camera…