Category Archives: International

Stray review — It’s the dog’s life

March 5, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Elizabeth Lo | 72 min | Carbon Arc Cinema Five years ago when an audience could gather together in person in the screening room at the Museum Of Natural History on Summer Street, Carbon Arc Cinema programmed a documentary called Kedi about cats living on the streets of Istanbul. A delight for feline…Read More

His House review — Refuge no respite from ghosts

March 4, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Remi Weekes | Written by Weekes, Felicity Evans, and Toby Venables | 93 min | Netflix It's a horror, but initially, the horror comes from the way the English system treats a couple, Bol and Rial Majur (Sope Dirisu and Wunmi Mosaku), refugees who've escaped from South Sudan, made the dangerous journey across…Read More

#HBFF review: Shaina

February 27, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Beautie Masvaure Alt | Written by Wanisai Chigwendere | 97 min | at the Halifax Black Film Festival 2021, running through Sunday The HBFF opening film is a Zimbabwean YA drama, telling the story of a 16-turning-17-year-old Shine (Wilmah Munemera). She more than bright, she's quietly brilliant, with dreams of going to university…Read More

Supernova (2021) review — Quietly devastating dementia drama

February 16, 2021 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Harry Macqueen | 93 min | On Demand This is a small, intimate drama, a straight-ahead two-hander for most of its running time. It's also a deeply moving film. Sam (Colin Firth) and Tusker (Stanley Tucci) have been together for years. Sam is a famed concert pianist and Tusker is an…Read More

Dear Comrades! review — Red riots and bloody streets

February 12, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Andrey Konchalovskiy | Written by Konchalovskiy and Elena Kiseleva | 121 min | Carbon Arc Cinema The Russian submission for the Best International Film at this year's Academy Awards is a black-and-white historical docudrama set in 1962 in Novocherkassk, a factory town in the Soviet Union. It tells the story of a workers…Read More

Acasa, My Home review — A family in the wild

January 29, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Radu Ciorniciuc | 86 min | Carbon Arc Cinema In the Romanian capital Bucharest is an urban wetlands — now protected — called Văcărești. That's where this documentary starts, with the Enache family: Two adults and nine children who have been living in a large tent in the park for years. The filmmaker,…Read More

Small Axe review — Steve McQueen’s potent portrait of immigrant culture in London

January 5, 2021 flawintheiris

In 2020, the line between film and TV has been smudged by the ubiquity of streaming. There's probably no better example of the blur right now than Small Axe, an anthology series directed and co-written by filmmaker and visual artist Steve McQueen (Hunger, Shame, 12 Years A Slave, Widows) that originally aired through November and…Read More

Top 15 Films of 2020

January 4, 2021 flawintheiris

Every year I assemble a list of the 10 best feature films (and sometimes documentaries) I saw in the past 12 months, and with it an accompanying collection of 10 "Under-The-Radar" pictures — the more peculiar, less mainstream, hidden gems worth seeking out. I figure that list could be more useful to a cinephile looking…Read More

Aniara review — Potent and thoughtful Scandi sci-fi

December 13, 2020 flawintheiris

Directed by Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja | Written by Kågerman and Lilja, based on a poem by Harry Martinson | 106 min | On Demand What we've got here is a chilling science-fiction drama based on an epic science-fiction poem. In Swedish. I'm sure I don't have to tell you this won't be to…Read More

Luxor review — Trauma haunts gorgeous Egyptian romance

December 4, 2020 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Zeina Durra | 85 min | On Demand Back in 2009, an international co-pro with an Arabic-Canadian filmmaker opened in cinemas: Ruba Nadda's Cairo Time. It's about an American woman, Juliette, played by Patricia Clarkson, who gets to know a friend of her husband, played by Alexander Siddig, while visiting Egypt.…Read More