A biopic of Billy Moore, the British boxer who was incarcerated in Thailand and went on to become the first foreigner to fight in the national prison kickboxing tournament. I do kinda feel this movie falls into the category of It Shouldn’t Happen To White People films. These are movies where you take events which…
A film about a young mother in rural Poland being silently crushed by all the many quiet tragedies that brings.
A weirdly paced, stifled drama about a bunch of German builders who go over to do a job in Bulgaria. There’s a constant sparking of conflict between the arsehole builders and the nearby Bulgarian villagers, which promises to build into something but really doesn’t. The main character can’t be fucked with the machismo or nationalism…
A film about two people’s stories linked by a heart transplant. Lovely.
A beautiful animation about an elderly woman who spends a year living in a shack on the beach, and finds nourishment in solitude.
Hema Hema: Sing Me A Song While I Wait is about this fictional Bhutanese ritual where people mask and spend the waning of the moon in a sacred camp in the forest, a liminal time where identity and law are suspended. In many ways, Hema Hema reminds me of classical puppetry. There is little dialogue,…
A movie about the relationship between two undocumented workers in Bangkok. This film is 90% folk eating instant noodles, which I like because, rather than sermonising about the injustices of migrant exploitation, it just shows what your day’s like – long, tiring, eating fast food because you’ve got no time and no money for anything…
A crime procedural based on a real miscarriage of justice in India. While the film shows multiple versions of how crime could have been committed, what it emphasises strongly is that there is no solid evidence against those convicted of the crime, and only the echo chamber of media gossip is what’s against them.
A piano-wire tense drama about the German POWs who were forced to clear landmines in Denmark after the end of the war. Brutal and not one to miss.
A movie about an aid agency that’s actually an illegal adoption racket. The main character is a hothead, an asshole, a liar and a cheat but he CAN’T be a bad guy because he’s helping the kids. Shows up just how much colonialism is in the international aid dynamic and how much ‘help’ is about…