Author: The Reviews Hub - Film

 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…

Writers: Gianluca Matarrese and Nico Morabito Director: Gianluca Matarrese  It’s hard to know exactly what you’re watching in Gianluca Matarrese’s I Want Her Dead (Il quieto vivo). He bills it as a documentary and the characters in the film all play themselves. But IDMB calls it a ‘tale’ which blends ‘reality and fiction, farce and tragedy.’ It’s set in Contrada Viscigliette, a tiny place in Calabria, home to just 70 residents, all of whom, as we are told, are related to one another. The focus is on two sisters-in-law, who live one above the other in a two-storey apartment building.…

Writer and Director: Shahad Ameen “The most important thing,” says Janna’s grandmother, “is knowing where you are and where you want to go.” The film opens with a bus full of women driving  through what looks like Snowdonia, including rain and sheep. It is in fact Ta’if, in the mountains of Saudi Arabia, and the women, completely veiled in black ,or in white showing only hands and faces , are on their way to Mecca. Everyone is praying except a young woman called Sara, who is listening to music through her headphones, until her grandmother, ’Sitti’, confiscates them. When the…

Writers: Marie Legrand, Amer Nasser and Arab Nasser Directors: Arab Nasser and Tarzan Nasser Once upon a time in Gaza there were doctors with book-lined offices. There were well-stocked pharmacies in every neighbourhood and a plentiful supply of chick peas and parsley. It was therefore not impossible to run a small-time drug dealing business with a falafel restaurant as a front. This is how Osama makes his living . It’s 2007, and Hamas have just taken control. Not that it interferes with business , except that the funeral of a militant snarls up the traffic. Osama (Majd Eid) is a…

Writers: Imran Perretta and Enda Walsh Director: Imran Perretta Previously shown at last year’s BFI London Film Festival, Ish is still on the festival circuit before its wider release at the end of July. Produced by the BBC and the BFI, Imran Perretta’s debut takes place during the summer in Luton. A coming-of-age story, Ish is nevertheless edged with violence. Police with face-recognition cameras trawl the streets while on the radio broadcasters discuss the genocide in Gaza. From the outset, there’s the feeling that something terrible will happen. Co-scripted by playwright Enda Walsh, the most terrible thing in the film…

Writer and Director: Yanis Koussim Horror films go for emotions. They excite , disturb and terrify. What Roqia mainly does is frustrate and annoy. The setting is Algiers. It’s a not unintriguing story, about two neurologically damaged characters whose lives eventually converge. One has Alzheimer’s, the other amnesia, so both are navigating the hideous shadowlands of dementia. The older man, in the present day, is an exorcist. Most occupations come with hazards; you don’t spend years in exorcism without absorbing some of the evil you’ve expelled. The other character is a young father in 1992, the year the ten-year-long Civil…

Writer and Director: Yuto Shimizu Make no mistake, this is a dangerous film. Hopefully, it won’t become a cult classic for the wrong reasons. Tokyo Nightfall, showing at this year’s well-curated Raindance Film Festival, is a treatise on suicide. Although set in Japan, its examination of aimlessness amidst a capitalistic city could apply to anywhere in the Western world. It’s a tough watch; an all-too-real urban horror. Amenashi blames himself for his sister’s suicide. After witnessing a girl falling to the ground out of an apartment window when she herself was a girl, Anna has always been troubled by sadness.…