A wonderful documentary following three stray dogs through the streets of Istanbul. On one level this is just a lovely documentary about the lives of dogs. Istanbul had tried for years to get rid of the city’s stray dogs, with culls and inhumane tactics, until mass protests made it the first city in the world…
The Glasgow Film Festival will return in 2022 from March 2nd-13th. That’s the dates plugged into the diary already.
A mere 4 days after it officially concluded. Well, that was some year. 63 features and 4 shorts, that’s a record total for me. And as a proportion of all the films shown at the festival, it’s probably the highest I will ever get at 91%. I mostly stuck to my schedule, but I was…
Spring Blossom is a film about a 16-year-old schoolgirl’s first love. It’s written, directed and starred in by Suzanne Lindon, so this is obviously her vision of a youthful romantic fantasy. Trouble is, the object of her affection is a much older man. I guess in France there are different sensibilities about these things. Young…
Killing Escobar is a documentary about an operation by British mercenaries to kill Pablo Escobar in 1989. The film focuses on Peter McAleese, a Glasgow born ex-SAS soldier who took to mercenary work in various colonial and Cold War conflicts. His reputation was such that he was hired by Dave Tompkins, an arms dealer and…
That was surreal. I love Maya Angelou, I read her poems and books. I used to sit in my wee part of the world and reach out through the pages to her world, and think on her extraordinary life and extraordinary spirit. So to watch Dr. Angelou step out of that world into mine, to…
Out of the World is about a taxi driver/serial killer who falls in love with a deaf dancer. Now, there are so many tropes in that description I can feel you shrinking back. I’ll be honest, I shouldn’t like this film. It’s one in a long line of sympathetic looks at poor misunderstood outsider men…
There Is No Evil is an anthology film with 4 short stories with the common thread being the impact of the death penalty in Iran on ordinary people. The first, titular story is a little slice-of-life, following a guy getting off night shift, picking up his wife, going to the bank, trying to get parking,…
Tree Fellers is a documentary about the Belize lumberjacks who came to Scotland as part of the war effort during WW2. When bombs were falling on homes and factories, a lot needed rebuilding, but all the men were off at war, so they recruited men from Belize for the forestry. It was wonderful to see…
The Man Standing Next is about the 40 days leading up to the overthrow of President Park of South Korea in 1979. This is some straight-up slick 70s spy shit right here. If you like John le Carre, this will be right up your street. I have to admit, I’m completely ignorant about South Korean…