2025 holds great promise for global independent and arthouse cinema from the return of old masters to a rich trove of breakthroughs by debut directors. Many of these films have received critical acclaim at film festivals while others have been flying a bit under the radar. Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof) In Farsi…
At the end of last week, news of visionary filmmaker David Lynch’s passing was announced. Months before his death, Lynch, aged 78, shared that he’d been diagnosed with emphysema. One of the most important filmmakers of his era, Lynch’s oeuvre—from Eraserhead and Blue Velvet to Mulholland Drive and his cult TV show, Twin Peaks—has been…
Opening this weekend, 17th January, the London Short Film Festival (LSFF) returns for its 22nd edition to celebrate emerging filmmakers and the art of short filmmaking. The eclectic programme will run across London’s most iconic screens and venues, including the BFI Southbank, ICA, Curzon Soho, Rio Cinema, and Rich Mix, and a free 1960s Mobile…
Cinema-ye Motafavet—also known as Iranian New Wave—emerged in the 1960s and 70s as an artistic response to the rapid modernisation and underlying paradoxes of Iranian society during the reign of the last Shah. These films, crafted by a small, passionate group of mostly self-taught filmmakers, combined documentary realism with poetic allegory, illuminating the complexities of…
I’m a big fan of this manifesto against best of the year lists, which applies as much to film as it does to books and restaurants. Since many of the sources of our collective pleasures are hard to reduce to a subjective opinion on contemporaneity and relevance within a given year. In the spirit of…
What lingers most from my year of going to the cinema in 2024 is not a particular image but an experience of time—or rather, several experiences of time as explored by filmmakers across the decades through a cultural and political inquiry into the intimate lives of women in various parts of Asia. This selection of…
Writer-director Pelin Keskin Liu’s debut short film Three Meals is a masterful portrait of the complexities, tensions and generational misunderstandings at the core of a relationship between a mother and daughter living very different lives. Yasmin and Suzy live apart – a metaphor for their having grown apart – but in the film they come together. Three…
December 2024 brings a trio of films from seasoned directors who have little in common, except that they are somewhat divisive. From the gritty realism of Andrea Arnold’s Bird to the opulent intrigue of Edward Berger’s papal-thriller Conclave, and the chaotic, darkly comic and deeply saddening world of Sean Baker’s Anora, these films showcase a range of modes of…