Sarah Ward

For a film so tied to a thoroughbred showcase, this broad crowd-pleaser blatantly relies on well-worn parts.

Collin attempts to do more than recount facts; if he can’t always wholly capture the figures at the film’s centre, he can convey a sense of the time and place that Lee and Helen inhabited.

This essential documentary is necessarily, unflinchingly grim; the cinematic equivalent of walking in the survivors’ shoes, and a complex, challenging but crucial viewing experience that burrows its immense sorrows deep into the audience’s bones.

Unrelenting as its tone may be, the feature proves a delicately layered, deftly shot work that makes an incisive statement about the prevalence of apathy, arrogance and egotism in contemporary China and beyond.

As fascinating as the film’s production process proves, it’s the results of their creative labours that entrance and enchant.

Mascaro’s striking aesthetics give the film a texture and atmosphere that aligns the audience firmly with its protagonist; she’s seeking transcendence, and the movie she’s in approximates it one lustrous frame at a time.

While the Chilean-Spanish writer/director weighs down every second of Blanco En Blanco with tension and solemnity, its big moments continually hit their marks – including the devastation and absurdity of its prolonged final sequence.

Flitting between demonstrations, recorded addresses and interviews from both sides gives rise to highly relevant observations and intriguing asides — and even when they’re obvious, they’re astute.

The film’s insights into the isolation evident in the relationships most take for granted — marriages, parent-child connections and long-term friendships — don’t merely hit their targets; they smash them with a sledgehammer.

Never making an obvious move, like its subject, the end result veers close to avant-garde. That’s a term that Cunningham himself famously and continually shunned; however Kovgan clearly doesn’t share the same concern.

Low-key performances by the conflicted Lahti and the radiant Airola prove the final knockout hit, with The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki at its best when it’s lingering upon the nuanced expressions on their faces, or highlighting the way their portrayals so convincingly convey their characters’ affections.

Observational yet authoritative in its approach, Li’s film first paints an inspiring picture, then a dispiriting one.

Much of the movie’s success stems from Contreras, his regular cinematographer Tonatiuh Martínez and the rest of the technical team’s handling of its spiritual musings, with a beguiling mood as crucial as the underlying backstory.

[Speer’s] damning answers to Birkin’s questions might have threatened to become repetitive if they didn’t paint a horrifying yet bleakly fascinating picture of a man doing something that remains thoroughly relevant today: spinning fake news.

It might be with a child’s eyes that Summer 1993 relates the efforts of a six year-old trying to cope with grief, but it is with maturity, empathy and heartfelt emotion that it conveys the uncertain reality that follows.

Indivisible peers and probes, offering a sensitive, insightful and sometimes even dream-like rumination on the cost of seeking and subverting normality.

This is an unsettling rebuke of government control and ideological manipulation — as well as a sharp cry against compliance with the prevailing status quo.

Touching on the pressures of living in a patriarchal society, as well as exploring attitudes towards nationality and sexuality, the film unpacks a raft of parallels in its three stories, leaving seemingly disparate characters with the same choices.

Even when the lines uttered sound more like a statement than an actual conversation, Sen remains a master of everything he controls as Goldstone slowly inches towards its bullet-riddled finale.

Diving deep into dark material yet always remaining afloat, it’s a potent feature debut from Australian filmmaker Rodd Rathjen.

Grass demonstrates a fresh type of playfulness from the prolific filmmaker. It’s a movie filled with his usual intimacy, but it’s also one that’s purposefully more concerned with the bigger picture than the individual details.

Conjuring up a serving of visual magic is one thing, of course; bringing Kipling’s characters and narrative to life is another.

The Breaker Upperers might suffer from a too-neat third act, but it wins hearts and hearty guffaws along the way.

The end result proves commanding and fascinating, even if it’s not wholly satisfying from start to finish.

If any colour represents the long-term impact of war, it’s the blend of beige and grey that fills The Load’s quietly powerful frames.

Unsettlingly perceptive as well as absurdly comedic, Under the Tree chronicles domestic tensions left to fester; when grudges branch out like a leafy tree in a suburban backyard, everyone suffers.

Nicchiarelli brings broader contemplations that help lift the film beyond the usual run-through of sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll, regrets, righting past wrongs, carving out meaningful relationships with those previously neglected along the way, and facing the future on one’s own terms.

Though the script rarely makes an unexpected choice, it’s the way that the film dissects its many underlying complications that matters more than eschewing predictability. Calmly, but filled with feeling, Graizer lets his protagonists’ actions and choices subvert the norm.