Author: The Reviews Hub - Film

Writer and Director:  Park Kun-young When a poet comes to live with single father Jin-woo on a farm in rural South Korea there’s little speculation from the neighbours. The poet is young and affable and soon runs poetry workshops for the village. It’s when another stranger arrives that Jin-woo’s reputation is in jeopardy. A Distance Place is a bleak but beautiful examination of queer families. It is perpetually autumn in Park Kun-young’s film. Trees are spectacularly yellow on the steep hillsides and mustards and honeys creep into interior shots of the homestead where Jin-woo works quietly for his landlord, himself…

Writers:  Eline Gehring, Francy Fabritz and Sara Fazilat Director: Eline Gehring Nico, written by Eline Gehring, Francy Fabritz and Sara Fazilat and showing at BFI Flare, is a smart female-centred story about the aftermath of trauma and its effects on Nico’s self-esteem and close relationships. Following a xenophobic attack due to her Iranian heritage, geriatric nurse Nico struggles to adjust, starting to withdraw from the clients who need her and best friend Rosa who cannot understand the change. Taking up karate to learn self-defence, Nico’s confidence starts to rise. Gehring, Fabritz and Fazilat’s film is a carefully managed, slow-burn character…

Writer and Director: Shelley Thompson Characters returning to small towns and villages can be a great basis for drama and in Shelley Thompsons’s new film, the premise of a young trans woman encountering local prejudice and misunderstanding from friends and neighbours is a strong one. And in placing a trans stories in a rural and community environment, Thompson’s intentions and sentiment are admirable. It is a shame that Dawn, Her Dad & the Tractor takes a soapy and sentimental approach to the story. Returning to attend her mother’s funeral following a long family estrangement, Dawn is confronted by the shocked…

Writer: Belén Sánchez-Arévalo Director: Javier Marco Josefina is an ideal choice for a foreign film festival as it minimises the potential language barrier between the audience. Javier Marco’s gentle mediative movie is full of long stretches of silence, has sparse dialogue and features a pair of actors with faces so expressive verbal communication is hardly necessary. Prison officer Juan (Roberto Álamo) becomes infatuated with Berta (Emma Suárez), when she makes regular visits to her son who is an inmate at the prison. With a view to striking up a relationship Juan pretends to be the father of a female prisoner…

Writers: Pablo Besarón and Gabriel Lichtmann Director: Gabriel Lichtmann La Estrella Roja is not a mockumentary although it is promoted as such and borrows techniques from the genre. Pablo Besarón and Gabriel Lichtmann who wrote the movie do not attempt to parody a particular genre but rather use the word to indicate, although styled as a documentary, that the film is not to be taken entirely seriously. Since it concerns someone who may, or may not, have been a spy this deception seems appropriate. However, while it is possible to ascertain what the film is not; determining its actual nature…

 Writer and Director:  T. J. Parsell Lesbians and country music may sound like a paradox and that’s what T. J. Parsell thought before he was approached to make a film about the connection. He then discovered that many of country music’s greatest hits were written by lesbians, women who were denied careers as singers because of their sexuality. Invisible is about country music’s homophobia but it’s also a testament to friendship and perseverance. There are so many stories to be told that, at first, Parsell’s film appears to lack structure as he introduces us to songwriters and musicians who were…

Writer: Jesper Fink, Maya Ilsøe, Charlotte Sieling Director: Charlotte Sieling Charlotte Sieling’s Margrete – Queen of the North focuses on the impressive figure of the fourteenth-century Danish queen who succeeded in uniting Denmark, Norway and Sweden under the long-lasting Kalmar Union. When the film opens, Queen Margrete, played with compelling emotional power by Trine Dyrholm, is arguing for a united army to protect the three countries from invasion by the Hanseatic League. To bolster this, she seeks political union with England, having negotiated a marriage settlement between her adopted heir Eric and Princess Philippa, the young daughter of Henry IV.…

Writer: Habacuc Antonio De Rosario, Teodora Ana Mihai Director: Teodora Ana Mihai Teodora Ana Mihai’s thriller La Civil is a gripping story set in Mexico. It concerns the fight of one woman, Cielo (Arcelia Ramírez), to find her daughter, who is kidnapped at the start of the film by a nameless gang. La Civil is dedicated to the mother who was the inspiration for Cielo and to others who shared their stories with the film-maker. The context is shocking: the UN Committee of Enforced Disappearances recently gave the number of Mexicans officially registered as disappeared as 95,000. It is a…