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Director: Tomer Heymann Reviewer: Richard Maguire Pornography has rarely been seen as an art, but in recent years this view has changed bringing with it a new academic interest in the genre. Soon Netflix will release its Circus of Books, a film by Rachel Mason about a porn shop in West Hollywood while Jon Ronson’s podcasts about the sex industry ...

Director: Rachel Mason Reviewer: Richard Maguire Within every family there are secrets, but rarely is that secret that your parents own a gay hard-core porn shop. Filmmaker Rachel Mason found out in school that Circus of Books, her parents’ bookshop in L.A., didn’t stock books about circuses. Later in life when she discovered that the shop was about to be ...

Director: Olivier Meyrou Reviewer: Maryam Philpott It is unusual for a fashion film to barely focus on the clothes, but big couture houses are also a business, one with hierarchies, disagreements and terrible pressures to deliver perfection. Olivier Meyrou’s documentary Yves Saint Laurent: The Last Collections is really an examination of co-founder and business partner Pierre Bergé and his attempts ...

Writer and Director: Dictynna Hood Reviewer: Maryam Philpott A dysfunctional family gather for a birthday party to finally reveal all the dark secrets that for reasons no one can fathom have never been revealed before at any number of parties the family have previously attended together. So goes the oh so standard narrative treatment which Dictynna Hood applies to her ...

Writer and Director: Tom Cullen Reviewer: Richard Maguire British films have held their own at this year’s London Film Festival. Despite tiny budgets, British directors have made movies just as good as those boasting budgets of millions. Pink Wall, the directorial debut by actor Tom Cullen was made with £100,000 and was shot in nine days. Nevertheless, his film charting ...

Writer: Catherine S McMullen Director: Małgorzata Szumowska Reviewer: Richard Maguire The Handmaid’s Tale hangs heavy over Małgorzata Szumowska’s first English-language film about a cult leader and his female disciples trekking across moors and mountains to find a new home. While beautifully shot, The Other Lamb is too laden with familiar horror tropes and the story isn’t as involving as it ...

Writer: Theresa Ikoko Director: Sarah Gavron Reviewer: Maryam Philpott One of the greatest things about the London Film Festival is the chance to see new perspectives and particularly movies by homegrown talent. These films don’t always attract big distribution deals or star names, but they are a celebration of everything that the British Film Industry can be with new writers, ...

Writer and Director: Gerard Johnson Reviewer: Maryam Philpott A film about a male mid-life crisis, a new-found desire to go to the gym and the latent violence in all of us may not sound like a winner and in a year in which the representation of female film-makers at the London Film Festival has reached 40%, Muscle may even sound ...