Roger Luckhurst

2 months ago | bfi.org.uk | Rachel Pronger Festivals |Rachel Pronger |Joseph Pidgeon |Roger Luckhurst

Debut director Rebecca Lenkiewicz has a clear affinity with the material, but the interiority of Levy’s novel about a fraught mother-daughter holiday doesn’t translate well to screen. 21 February 2025Reviewed from the 2025 Berlin International Film FestivalOver the past decade, screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz has carved out a reputation for cerebral, literary stories built around female dissatisfaction and rebellion.

2 months ago | bfi.org.uk | Roger Luckhurst Festivals |Roger Luckhurst |Nicolas Rapold |Jessica Kiang

It’s been six years since the South Korean director Bong Joon Ho broke into the big league with the Oscar-winning Parasite (2019). A delayed release date for Mickey 17 worried some; perhaps the studio didn’t know how to position the film, given the director’s return to the crazy exuberance of his early creature-feature The Host (2006) or the super-pig shenanigans of Okja (2017). Or was it worried by the overt liberal politics of this frenetic satire?

Nov 14, 2024 | bfi.org.uk | Guy Lodge |Kambole Campbell |Kate Stables |Roger Luckhurst

For a sequel so long in the works and so highly anticipated, there’s something surprisingly utilitarian about its title: Gladiator II, minus any prestigious-sounding subtitles, as if merely churned out onto a rather slow-moving factory conveyor belt. Ridley Scott continues to favour an unusual combination of colossal scale and minimal fuss.

Nov 12, 2024 | bfi.org.uk | Kambole Campbell |Kate Stables |Roger Luckhurst |Kambole Campbell Festivals

An 11-year-old girl embarks on an emotional journey with an immortal ghost cat in Yamashita Nobuhiro and Kuno Yoko’s frenetic, style-switching animation. 12 November 2024Reviewed from the 2024 Tokyo International Film FestivalIt feels easy and perhaps reductive to draw a line between the countryside fantasies of Hayao Miyazaki and Ghost Cat Anzu.

Nov 8, 2024 | bfi.org.uk | Nick Bradshaw |Kate Stables |Roger Luckhurst |Philip Strick

It’s a tale as old as the hills, the kind that international law says should have long been buried in them: ordinary people menaced on their land by raiding parties, invaders and occupiers waving weapons and new rules or expulsion orders.