“I must be hardest person you’ve ever had to track down,” says Dr Femi Folorunso as he leads me to a private booth. “Yes,” I reply, meaning it. A self-described “anti-social” man with work spanning from the Dundee Rep Theatre to Magnetic North in Edinburgh to the Beacon Arts Centre in Greenock, Folorunso is a Read More
(UK/France, 2016) 28th Oct – 10th Nov, DCA Ken Loach’s new film I, Daniel Blake has been repeatedly compared to his 1966 work Cathy Come Home. Cathy aired on the BBC and managed to completely transform the public perception of homelessness, even leading to the founding of the charity Shelter. Does I, Daniel Blake have Read More
Demolition comes from Canadian film-maker Jean-Marc Valée (Dallas Buyers Club) and explores the grievance and mental collapse of Davis Mitchel (Gyllenhaal), after he and his wife are in a car crash in which she dies and he escapes unscathed. The film becomes somewhat reminiscent of Donnie Darko crossed with Fight Club, birthing a beautifully original Read More
A film of incredible power and emotion, Dheepan is director Jacques Audiard’s stunning take on the plight of three Sri Lankan refugees, forced to flee their country’s civil war and impersonate a family unit in order to ensure their survival. Dheepan (Jesuthasan Antonythasan) secures his own deportation to France, together with fellow refugees Yalini (Kalieaswari Read More
As a purveyor of art-house cinema, films with long poetic titles become something to be wary of. Generally these are examples of films that are either overwhelmingly didactic or gratingly obsessed with the (self-assessed) brilliance of their style or ideas. The Sky Trembles… teeters at the edge of the cliff of pretension, but manages for Read More
Ravaged by grief, Scottish couple John (Paul Higgins) and Karen (Kate Dickie) go feral in the French Pyrenees after losing their son in Tom Green’s suspenseful thriller, Couple in a Hole. Leaving the technology and pressures of civilisation for the calm of the forest is hardly a new concept in cinema (Into the Wild, Antichrist, Read More
It seems that any filmmaker taking on the task of telling their story through one ambitious and seamless take will now, inevitably, have their film compared to Birdman, be labelled a gimmick, or both. Sebastian Schipper’s Victoria has fallen prey to both critiques and comparisons. However, while Victoria shares Birdman’s impeccably sensitive and intelligent camera-work, traces Read More
Scott Graham’s beautifully shot Iona tells the story of the difficulties encountered by Iona (Ruth Negga), a young mother returning to her birthplace, the island with which she shares her name. Fleeing traumatic circumstances, Iona and her son Bull (Ben Gallagher) attempt to integrate themselves with island society, a process complicated by figures from Iona’s Read More
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT6QJaS2a-U Existential thoughts and ideals are the foundation for many of Charlie Kaufman’s films, thrusting his conflicted characters into both the greatly sublime and vastly melancholic. Being the intense character study that it is, Anomalisa proves to be no exception. Originally conceived for the stage, this stop motion animation film for grown-ups tells the story Read More
The 2007-2008 financial crisis stands alongside 9/11 as one of the most impactful events of the last decade. But, while the after effects of the latter were subsequently made obvious to the public by a deluge of media analysis and the spectacle of two foreign wars, the financial crisis remains largely unanalysed and un-commemorated. Despite Read More
