My Favourite Films of 2022

There are two sections: New in 2022 (new releases, festival films, etc) Older films discovered for the first time Films are listed alphabetically within each section. 1. New in 2022 (new releases, festival films, etc) Aftersun [Charlotte Wells, 2022, UK, US] Incredibly impressive: subtle, atmospheric, immersive. One of the stand-out films of the year. A …

Interview with Bill Morrison – Cambridge Film Festival – 26 October 2017

Mike O'Brien and Bill Morrison. Photo credit: Jean-Luc Benazet and Cambridge Film Festival This interview was first published in Take One. Dawson City: Frozen Time, the latest film from renowned American director Bill Morrison, is a complex, poetic, multi-stranded tale featuring the fortuitous discovery of buried nitrate film stock. The telling of this story reveals …

My Favourite Films of 2017

It's been a pretty awful year in politics, so I find looking back at my year in film is a pleasant diversion. The following is a list of my current 2017 favourites, but before I go through them, there are a few special film-related highlights to mention: In January I hosted a Q&A with producer …

Cambridge Film Festival 2017: Kékszakállú

Below is a slightly edited review of the one published in Take One, both in a festival print magazine  and online. An outdoor swimming pool and some children take turns to launch themselves from the diving board. One girl hesitates at the edge, frightened, uncertain. Cut. In Kékszakállú - the enthralling latest film from Argentinian …

NIGHT MOVES [Kelly Reichardt, 2014]

Cambridge Film Festival 2014 NIGHT MOVES is a thriller of sorts; but as you would expect from the director of the enigmatic Western, MEEK'S CUTOFF, Kelly Reichardt takes the genre in unexpected and fascinating directions. The plotting is sparse and slow, though in Reichardt's hands the formal restraint only serves to heighten the uneasy sense …

About Elly

My 2012 Cambridge Film Festival experience began on a real high this September when I saw ABOUT ELLY. I recently saw this Iranian film a second time and it made an even bigger impression. Director Asghar Farhadi is better known for his more recent film A SEPARATION, which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language …

Cambridge Film Festival 2012

And so another successful Cambridge Film Festival drew to a close yesterday. I'm already missing it... Here are some very quick thoughts on this year's experience. Lead by the inspirational director Tony Jones and his team of programmers, this important, ambitious festival prides itself on bringing a wide-range of quality films to Cambridge. What is …

Sleep Furiously and the Cambridge Film Festival…

In my last post I mentioned the fast approaching Cambridge Film Festival, one of the highlights of my year. Among the many reasons I love the festival so much is that it affords the opportunity for discovering some real cinematic gems. I can still vividly remember being mesmerised by Guy Maddin's DRACULA: PAGES FROM A …

The Nine Muses and its ghosts…

With one of the highlights of my year, The Cambridge Film Festival, only a few tantalising weeks away, it just so happens that I have been re-watching one of the films shown at last year's festival - The Nine Muses. At the time I found the film beautiful and poetic, although I also felt it …

My Favourite Films of 2011

The usual caveats apply: a) there are many important 2011 films which I haven't yet seen; b) I tend to change my mind about films, so this is a snap shot of my opinions at this point in time; c) I find it almost impossible to rank films in any great detail, so I tend …