Raindance: Making movies

The 29th Raindance Film Festival is heading into its final weekend in London, as audiences get a taste of independent films that are often unlikely to turn up in either cinemas or streaming sites. I'm still watching the films online, but have been meeting filmmakers at the House of Raindance social space as well. My usual weekly routine continues amid the festival, so it's covered below. But first a few more Raindance highlights...

The Rossellinis
dir Alessandro Rossellini; with Alessandro Rossellini, Isabella Rossellini 20/It ***.
There's an offhanded honesty to this documentary, in which Alessandro Rossellini explores his sprawling family and the meaning of his famous grandfather's legacy. Key film clips and extensive archival footage are included that tellingly explore layers of family history. But the filmmaker's goal is to reveal stories that have never been told and find the defining factor that keeps him so closely connected to his aunts, uncles and cousins... FULL REVIEW >

King Car [Carro Rei]
dir Renata Pinheiro; with Luciano Pedro Jr, Matheus Nachtergaele 21/Br ***.
Blackly comical and wildly outrageous, this satirical Brazilian thriller plays on the idea that cars have consciousness and would change the world if they could communicate with humanity. While set in the present, filmmaker Pinheiro cleverly evokes a 1980s vibe, including a terrific Christine-meets-Knightrider kick as the story spins into an epic battle against government oppression. And there are several even more bonkers elements to the story as well... FULL REVIEW >

Against the Current
dir Oskar Pall Sveinsson; with Veiga Gretarsdottir, Gretar S Petursson 20/Ice ****
Beautifully shot in spectacular locations, this introspective documentary traces a daring physical challenge. And as a trans woman, Velga Gretarsdottir's life has been full of challenges. The movie doesn't shy away from bleak elements of her life, but it maintains a sense of positivity, facing each obstacle with dignity and tenacity. Filmmaker Oskar Pall Sveinsson keeps the tone earthy and warm, celebrating a woman who has never followed the crowd... FULL REVIEW >

Zip It
dir-scr Anicee Gohar; with Mohanad "Kojak" Aglan, Nabila Yassin 21/Egy ****
This documentary about rising star Egyptian fashion designer Kojak takes on the thorny issue of being a queer artist in the Middle East with openness and honesty. Filmmaker Anicee Gohar vividly captures Kojak's energy and style, including lots of glitter and glamour. Even at just an hour long, this film provides a remarkably complex portrait of a bright young designer who is quietly determined to change his harshly proscriptive culture.

Full reviews of festival films will be linked at Shadows' RAINDANCE HOMEPAGE 
For full festival information, visit RAINDANCE FILM FEST 

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C R I T I C A L    W E E K

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Card Counter • Beans
The Beta Test • A Cop Movie
ALL REVIEWS >

Non-festival films I caught up with this week include Chloe Zhao's Marvel epic Eternals, which has a fantastic ensemble cast led by Gemma Chan and some lovely character touches, but is disappointingly dense and effects-laden. Josh O'Connor and Odessa Young are terrific in the British period drama Mothering Sunday, which is unusually sexy for the genre. The British comedy Pirates bristles with energy even if it feels silly. Paolo Sorrentino's The Hand of God is a gorgeously autobiographical coming-of-age drama. And the shorts collection The Male Gaze: Celluloid Dreams features a remarkable set of vintage films about masculinity and sexuality.

This next week, in addition to Raindance films, I'll be watching the reunion sequel Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Almodovar's Parallel Mothers, Ryan Reynolds in Red Notice, Tom Hanks in Finch and Clint Eastwood's Cry Macho.

LFF: Tell your story

Aside from watching everything online, another major difference in this year's London Film Festival is that there isn't that usual nagging feeling that somewhere else in the city there are parties and filmmakers and actors hanging out having fun without you. This year everyone's joining in from home, aside from a precious few actual screenings. Here are two more highlights, plus this week's non-festival roundup...

Shirley

dir Josephine Decker; with Elisabeth Moss, Michael Stuhlbarg 20/US **.

A fictional story involving iconic author Shirley Jackson is told with inventive style by director Josephine Decker, who infuses the screen with imagery and sounds that play on Jackson's work, using wildly colourful flourishes and nods to murky horror tropes. The actors are superb as people who become twisted around each other. But the story never quite clicks into gear, so it's only the creepy tension that keeps us watching.

The Painter and the Thief

dir Benjamin Ree; with Barbora Kysilkova, Karl-Bertil Nordland 20/Nor ****

Playing out as a fascinating dramatic narrative, this documentary unfolds its story using found footage, surveillance cameras and remarkably intimate fly-on-the-wall sequences. Filmmaker Benjamin Ree is following the extraordinary story of an unexpected friendship, two people who shouldn't be able to see each other with such remarkable clarity. Perhaps they recognise that they're both survivors of difficult situations. And in many ways they're still struggling to get through.

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C R I T I C A L   W E E K

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Black Box • Kajillionaire
Song Lang • Yes 
PERHAPS AVOID:
The War With Grandpa 
FULL REVIEWS >

In between the festival films, I managed to watch the amusing but badly underpowered slapstick comedy The War With Grandpa, the guilty pleasure twisty sci-fi thriller Black Box, the provocative black comedy Yes, the warm midlife crisis comedy From the Vine, the scruffy road movie Making Tracks, the bonkers Turkish parable The Antenna, the meandering French odyssey The Wanderings of Ivan, and the moving Vietnamese drama Song Lang.

And this coming week I need to fit these in around LFF screenings: Paul Bettany in Uncle Frank, the horror films Evil Eye and Nocturne, the mystery Don't Look Back, and a doc called JR "Bob" Dobbs and the Church of the SubGenius.

Critical Week: Inter-connected

In this job, it can be frustrating watching film festivals like Venice and Toronto from afar: clearly these are the movies that will factor in at year-end, yet those of us not at the festival have to wait, and wait, wondering when we'll be able to see them so we can write about them and consider them for the awards we vote in. Clearly I was spoiled by being in Venice for the last couple of years! Anyway, we caught up with one notorious title, a Sundance film that will play at the London Film Festival next month: Assassination Nation is a full-on satire of modern teen culture, playing on social media and toxic masculinity as it heads into its horrific climax.

The rest of the week was eclectic: Mark Wahlberg and director Peter Berg reteam for another action thriller, Mile 22, and the film feels loud and thin, even for them. The Rider is an exquisite doc-style drama about a South Dakota rodeo cowboy grappling with a new reality. Lucky is a delicate, witty tale about a salty 90-year-old war veteran in rural Arizona, played by the wonderful then-90-year-old Harry Dean Stanton. A Boy. A Girl. A Dream. is a beautifully shot single-take romantic odyssey through nighttime Los Angeles starring Omari Hardwick and Meagan Good. And Lost Child tells a creepy story from the backwoods of the Ozarks, cleverly weaving folklore with current social issues.

A little further afield, José had its world premiere in Venice, and I got to see it in London: it's a powerful drama from Guatemala about a young gay man who finally begins to think he might be able to have a happy life. Complex and beautifully made, it won the Queer Lion. Another gay-themed drama, Sodom is a contained British drama set in Berlin about two strangers whose lives cross momentously. From Palestine, Wajib is a quietly involving look at an estranged father and son going about their family duty before a wedding. And Bisbee '17 is a strikingly original doc that explores events in the Arizona mining town a century ago.

This coming week is a little slower than usual - no idea why that might be, as there are plenty of films on the horizon that I need to see. Anyway, I'll be catching up with Willem Dafoe in Padre, Mischa Barton in The Basement, Sam Sheperd in Never Here and Rory Culkin in The Song of Sway Lake, among other things, no doubt.