Remember the Promise of a Better Tomorrow is a memoir of Agata Zbylut’s artistic career told in mockumentary format. I wasn’t so sure about this when it started, but it’s actually really fun. Agata lampoons the self-indulgence of such an exercise, playing the 3 talking heads being interviewed who fawn over her genius at first,…
With Sin La Habana, the UK Jewish Film Festival is over. Such good films! Really consistently high quality. The documentaries were fascinating, and really covered a broad spectrum of perspectives. One thing I’m definitely gonna do now is watch Yentl. In the wee UK JFF trailer that plays before each film, it had folk reacting…
Closing out the UK Jewish Film Festival is Sin La Habana, which is a funny coincidence with all the Cuban movies I’ve been watching with Havana Glasgow. Sin La Habana is about a Cuban ballet dancer who makes a plan to get him and his girl out the country. The opening scene is of Leo…
The Havana Glasgow Film Festival is over. That’s the first time I’ve really binged their movies, and I totally missed a couple I was gonna watch online. But it’s 3am, and I’ve got to get up for work in 5 hours, so I’m calling it a win. It’s really interesting to see a diversity of…
We close out the Havana Glasgow Film Festival with Queens of the Revolution, and what a closer! Really interesting, really moving, really inspiring. It features the single most powerful drag performance I have ever seen. Queens of the Revolution tells the story of queer liberation in Cuba, through the people of Mejunje, a queer cultural…
A really lovely film about three friends kicking about on their roof. With that aimlessness that follows after leaving high school, it kinda reminds me a little of Ghost World. These pals spend their time talking shit and coming up with ideas of what to do with their future. Victor Jose, nicknamed Vito, goes on…
Los Zafiros: Music from the Edge of Time is a bittersweet documentary about the Cuban band Los Zafiros, meaning The Sapphires. Rising to fame in the 60s, their popularity endures to this day. Los Zafiros starts with very humble beginnings. A bunch of kids in Havana got together to sing and play guitar. There wasn’t…
The last Arturo Sotto film of the festival, this one from 2014. It continues in his depiction of Cuba as full of shagging and domestic chaos. I kinda thought with this one being a more recent film it wouldn’t have the same gapingly problematic nature as stuff from the 90s, especially in its treatment of…
Wow. That was amazing. In a fortnight of watching some really excellent documentaries, this one is something else. I highly recommend you watch it. Kings of Capitol Hill is about the powerful Washington lobbying group AIPAC, which stands for American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. Its job is to ensure the US supports policies that favour…
After the pandemonium of the other Arturo Sotto films shown today, Mantis Nest came as a bit of a surprise. A more or less straightforward murder mystery, with a love triangle and a noirish bent. It’s bloody brilliant too. Really compelling, keeps you gripped. Elena has, since childhood, inspired the love of two men, Tomas…