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1 month ago | 
theskinny.co.uk | Philip Concannon
Film title: Motel Destino Director: Karim Aïnouz Starring: Iago Xavier, Nataly Rocha, Fábio Assunção, Fabíola Líper Release date: 9 May Certificate: 18 The establishment that gives Karim Aïnouz’s new film its title is a seedy beachside resort in Ceará, on Brazil’s northeastern coast. For horny holidaymakers, it’s a convenient spot with rooms that can be rented by the hour, but for petty criminal Heraldo (Xavier), it’s a refuge.
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Feb 3, 2025 | 
theskinny.co.uk | Philip Concannon
Film title: The Seed of the Sacred Fig Director: Mohammad Rasoulof Starring: Soheila Golestani, Missagh Zareh, Mahsa Rostami, Setareh Maleki Release date: 7 Feb Certificate: 15 Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig is a portrait of three women who live in the shadow of their family’s patriarch.
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Jan 27, 2025 | 
theskinny.co.uk | Philip Concannon
Film title: Hard Truths Director: Mike Leigh Starring: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Michele Austin, David Webber, Tuwaine Barrett, Ani Nelson, Sophia Brown Release date: 31 Jan Certificate: 12A We’ve all had days when you wake up in a funk and feel like everyone was put on earth specifically to antagonise you, but that’s every day for Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), the protagonist in Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths.
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Oct 23, 2024 | 
bfi.org.uk | Richard G. Combs |Jessica Kiang |Philip Concannon
What is most admirable, first of all, about Halloween is what it is not: despite its setting in the sort of snug, small Mid-Western town which has been host of late to many a rampaging Z-feature mutant (and prompted some equally misbegotten critical theses on the Family), it cannot really be described at all in terms sociological or psychological.
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Oct 18, 2024 | 
bfi.org.uk | Philip Concannon |Kambole Campbell |Annabel Jackson |Philip Concannon Festivals
Numerous actors have portrayed Sherlock Holmes on the big screen over the course of the past century, but nobody comes close to Eille Norwood, who starred as Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary sleuth in 45 shorts and two features for Stoll Pictures between 1921 and 1923.
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Oct 14, 2024 | 
theskinny.co.uk | Philip Concannon
Film title: The Crime Is Mine Director: François Ozon Starring: Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Rebecca Marder, Isabelle Huppert, Fabrice Luchini, Dany Boon Release date: 18 Oct Certificate: 12A When you churn out features with François Ozon's regularity, it’s inevitable you can sometimes be caught coasting. The Crime is Mine is a fun but forgettable screwball pastiche in which a high-profile murder trial sparks a media frenzy, with echoes of Roxie Hart (1942).
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Sep 10, 2024 | 
theskinny.co.uk | Philip Concannon
Film title: In Camera Director: Naqqash Khalid Starring: Nabhaan Rizwan, Amir El-Masry, Rory Fleck Byrne, Josie Walker, Gana Bayarsaikhan Release date: 13 Sep Certificate: 15 “Smile. Say the words on the page. It’s not hard,” Adem (Rizwan) tells himself as he stares into a mirror. It’s not always as easy as it sounds. Adem is an aspiring actor on the bottom rung of the British film and TV industry.
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Sep 5, 2024 | 
bfi.org.uk | Philip Concannon |Anton Bitel |Nicolas Rapold |John Bleasdale
Brazilian-Algerian director Karim Aïnouz makes his English-language feature debut with a distinctive period piece starring Alicia Vikander as Katherine Parr, sixth and last wife of Henry VIII. 5 September 2024We’re in the mid-1540s, the final years of the reign of Henry VIII, and Henry (Jude Law) has married his sixth and last wife, Katherine Parr (Alicia Vikander).
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Sep 5, 2024 | 
bfi.org.uk | Anton Bitel |Philip Concannon |Kambole Campbell
Starve Acre opens with a quotation, three stanzas entitled ‘The Dandelion’ invoking a mythic figure variously known as Jack, Dandelion or Devil who has been cast out – and down – by townsfolk. The poem, calling upon Jack’s return from “nature’s womb” in the coming spring, casts a shadow over all that follows.
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Aug 28, 2024 | 
bfi.org.uk | Anton Bitel |Philip Concannon |Kambole Campbell
Cuckoo metaphors and loopy plot lines are pushed to the limit in this wildly unsettling conspiratorial horror set in a Bavarian alpine resort. 28 August 2024The word ‘cuckoo’ has multiple associations, all of which will be played out over the course of writer/director Tilman Singer’s quirky horror. It can refer to a bird which sometimes engages in brood parasitism, depositing its eggs in the nests of other bird species – and here we find its human, or at least human-like, equivalent.
