The question, “How do you behave in a time of war?”resonates through the theatre, as a young Serb, Bojan, struggles to sit through his night shift at Radio Television Serbia amid the distant sound of NATO’s bombs plaguing the city of Belgrade. Marinus Groothof’s feature debut The Sky Above Us unfolds around this query. This Read More
The past often appears sun-bleached on the screen: idyllic, nostalgic. Niels Arden Oplev’s portrayal of Denmark in 1976 receives the same treatment in Speed Walking, a coming of age drama that exudes a reflective humour on the period – in its commitment to costume design at the very least. Amidst a sexual revolution – with Read More
With a focus on characterisation and the importance of filial relationships, Bernard Bellefroid presents Melody, only his second feature film since his debut in 2009 with The Boat Race, a film in which a young boy attempts to rediscover human values of love taken from him by an abusive father. In Melody, Bellefroid proves to Read More
It goes without saying that music is a complex subject. The strong feelings invoked, the interpretations and the influences that a particular piece has are almost infinite, especially when dealing with one of the masters of the art such as Johann Sebastian Bach. Erbarme Dich – Matthäus Passion Stories attempts to unpack this subject, making Read More
“Is there a connection between love and the ocean?” asked a viewer of Atlantic’s director, Jan-Willem van Ewijk, during the post-screening interview session at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. “Yes, I believe there is”, was his reply. Atlantic, the director’s second feature since his departure from a career in investment banking, is a love letter Read More
Ahren Warner’s first two collections, Confer and Pretty, may have simple titles but inside the covers you’ll find poems teeming with conceptual and linguistic complexities. Both books demand the reader’s full participation – I found myself conferring not only with Warner’s explanatory endnotes but also with Google to find translations of French and Greek words, Read More
Over the last couple of decades, Scottish crime novels have become immensely popular and increasingly in demand. The genre is going strong thanks to pioneering authors such as Ian Rankin and Val McDermid, and now Denzil Meyrick wishes to join that list. This latest novel in a series by Meyrick, The Last Witness is a Read More
The cover of Sheenagh Pugh’s new collection features a photo of the long shadows of two people, standing on a beach, apparently looking back on their own footsteps. Backdropped by a close-up of round, eroded stones in a blue-grey scale, that opening image accurately reflects the title – Short Days, Long Shadows. Focused on the Read More
Ian Duhig has been, to use Lawrence Sterne’s own phrase, “Shandying about” in Yorkshire for Digressions, his collaboration with artist-printmaker, Philippa Troutman. In 2013, the tercentenary of Sterne’s birth, they set out from Shandy Hall, Coxwold in North Yorkshire where The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy was written, to celebrate Sterne’s great work through Read More
J. Michael Shell’s The Apprentice Journals follows the story of Spaul, one of the few remaining Apprentices in a post- apocalyptic America, an individual with the ability to speak to the strange elemental beings that now run rampant across the Earth. Spaul crosses paths with another Apprentice, a mute woman named Pearl, who merges with Read More