Reviews

There’s a lot going on in Céline Carridroit and Aline Suter’s hybrid Summer Drift (Virages) which, on a basic level, charts protagonist Johanna Schopfer’s summer in Geneva as she works, enjoys the summer sunshine and considers getting rid of her old VW Beetle. The doc, which premiered in Cannes ACID, also provides a nuanced appraisal of LGBTQ+ and trans themes within a visually alluring 16mm aesthetic, all of which help to deliver a gentle charmer of a film.

Mark Cousins continues his winning streak with parts 6 and 7 of his sixteen-hour long series, as he explores the global development of documentary film in the 1970s, with the rise of, among other things, environmentalism, gay rights, feminism and punk. “White western critics hardly noticed, but the message was clear. In the 1970s, cinema was everywhere. Documentary in particular,” Cousins points out.

A hybrid documentary that astutely blends archival video, pictures and audio with re-enactments, Regina Schilling’s absorbing DOK.fest Munich opener Ingeborg Bachmann – Someone Who Was Once Me (Ingeborg Bachmann – Jemand, der einmal Ich war) is made all the more accessible and intriguing with acclaimed German actress Sandra Hüller on board to portray the eponymous heroine on an imaginary day in Rome.

Five years after the horrific racist murders in the German town of Hanau that made headlines around the world, survivors and relatives are still searching for answers and, above all, recognition as equal members of society. Meanwhile, in Germany, the far right is on the rise, and support for the AfD shows no sign of abating...

With incredible creativity, care and integrity, Maria Esteve Silvia has made a film that is as compelling as it is harrowing, about the traumatic impact of abuse within the Catholic Church and the exhausting struggle for justice. From the very first moment, we are seized by the combination of images and materials that are masterfully edited into a flowing, gripping and balanced tale.

Frustrated teenager, talented artist, battered wife. Mehrdad Oskouei’s remotely directed Afghan niece Soraya is all these things, while she tenaciously tries to enter the EU from Iran and Turkey, hoping to reunite with her mother in Austria. In this nuanced and intimate documentary we follow Soraya as she films herself (hence her co-director credit) during her desperate odyssey. Visually, the whole experience is enriched by beautiful, painterly animations which are clearly fantastical, but convincingly integrated into the documentary reality.

How can you overcome the desperate fear of losing your loved ones? Filmmaker Rafael Palacio Illingworth tries to find a way which, while raising serious questions about ethics and morality, at the same time immerses the viewer in an enchanting experience where the boundaries between fiction and reality completely dissolve.

Nông Nhật Quang’s debut feature brings us into his family’s turbulent dealings both with his queerness and his sister’s mental health issues. The film embraces the free-flowing and lively vitality of social media aesthetics – but also, unfortunately, some of its questionable ethics. The film won the Special Jury Award of the Société des Hôteliers de la Côte.

This truly eye-opening film observes the proceedings in India’s first women-led Islamic court, highlighting the (still) astonishingly unequal status of women in India, but also the powerful and unstoppable way in which women are striving to secure justice. The film dismantles clichés about Muslim women as defenceless victims and Islam as a misogynistic religion. For these women are, in fact, taking religious law into their own hands as a powerful weapon against male dominance.

Ross McClean’s intimate and insightful film offers up a frank and unsentimental look at a young man (Ryan) who is a regular within the prison system, accepting of how institutionalised he has become, but who also sees the possibility of another alternative life, and one that does not entail crime and subsequent incarceration. Of all things, this new life would involve sheep.