Ashgrove is a story about relationships at the end of the world. Jennifer is a scientist who is working on a cure for a global plague when she has a blackout. She gets put on leave, taking a weekend off for the first time in a year to go relax. Her husband Jason takes her…
Ivo Rona is the undisputed head of his family business. He’s been a hard-nosed bastard all his life, and now finally the chickens are coming home to roost. Millions go missing from the company, and Ivo starts to turn himself in circles trying to find the culprit. Even when the method is discovered, his paranoia…
The Blind Man Who Did Not Want To See Titanic is bloody brilliant! The main character is Jaakko, a guy who is blind and paralysed from the chest down, so the film is shot from his perspective. But how do you make a film, a visual medium, from the perspective of someone who is blind?…
That was actually a lot better than I was expecting. I mean that as a compliment. From the trailer, showing the main character living a double life, especially when one was obviously quite luxurious, I was worried it was gonna be a bit Anna Karenina. You know, Oh poor Anna! All she has is everything,…
Thoroughly enjoyable slice of life in the neighbourhood. Three Floors basically focuses on the lives of several families who share a close. It tracks their ups and downs over a decade. The film opens with heavily pregnant Monica, who lives on the first floor, trying to phone for a taxi as she goes into labour,…
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,…
Rosa’s Wedding is a rom-com about loving yourself. Rosa is the lynchpin of her family, holding everyone together and being taken for granted more than a little. She takes the lion’s share of looking after her lonely elderly father on behalf of her siblings. She helps out her divorcing brother with his child care. She…
Chinese noir about how life turns on a dime. Song Hao is a conscientious student on track for university, after years of hard work and good choices. Then he is told his university spot has been given to another student, Li Tang, his friend and the son of the corrupt mayor. Both he and his…
The Last Ones is about a total prick who owns a mine in Lapland, and thinks he can take whatever he wants, like other people’s land and other people’s wives. It’s almost criminally boring. I’ve heard this described as Finnish Western. The mine is set up on indigenous land, with the Sami reindeer herders in…
Grim. Like, Dostoyevsky levels of grim. The opening scene is a woman dragging her kids by the arm down to a factory and declaring, “I am Biljana Stojkovic. The wife of Nikola Stojkovic. I have a bottle of petrol in my hand. If you don’t pay my husband’s remaining salaries, and the severance package you’ve…