Reviews

Stylistically dreamlike and emotionally intimate, Srđan Keča’s debut feature, world premiering at IDFA, leads us into the homeless lives of a young girl, her mother and an ersatz grandmother, living in the basement of the never completed Museum of the Revolution in Belgrade.

There are, of course, plenty of films that have looked into the Covid global pandemic, but director Nanfu Wang’s remarkable film – which screens at IDFA – manages to take its viewers on a rollercoaster journey as she details the start of the crisis in her native China and its devastating human impact, but also the political machinations of both the Chinese and US governments as each tried to spin the crisis.

In Maia Kenworthy and Elena Sanchez Bellot’s smartly constructed film the ultimate achievement – and one which is at the heart of the film – is the very real impact that Extinction Rebellion has had on tackling climate change.

Endlessly fascinating, and equally recognisable to a Western audience, and following in the footsteps of Abbas Kiarostami’s classic from 1989, Tonight’s Homework, world premiering at IDFA, shows Iranian primary school children being interviewed about their lives.

Taamaden offers an intriguing and insightful take on young West African migrants who seek to find their way to Europe to try and make money for their families. The film dwells as much on the way the live as how they turn to trusted mystics and clairvoyants back in their home countries to help them make decisions and seek reassurance as to what the future holds in store for them.

An astonishingly open, moving, funny and challenging insight into the world of a woman paralysed but with her mind intact, Eat Your Catfish is remarkable in portraying an intimate and powerful portrait of a family stretched it its very breaking point. (Envision Competition)

The historic first public cinema screening of The History of the Civil War (1921), long-lost sophomore film by Russian master Dziga Vertov, in Amsterdam’s Tuschinski Theatre, was both a glorious event and an archival triumph, if at times somewhat slow. That said, uninspiring scenes of parading soldiers were offset by an excellent live score, striking war footage and scattered hints of Vertov’s later genius.

At some point, maybe a quarter way into the film, you may find yourself asking: what is this all about? But stick with it and you’ll realise this question is an irrelevance. Because you’re about to get sucked in deep into this irresistible, colourful, rough, loving, and sometimes scary world of Cabaret Travesía Travesti.

This endearing portrait of multi-faceted trans artist and adult performer Tara Emory impresses with its gentle approach to potentially sensationalist subject matter. It shows Emory as, above all, an interesting individual – who just happens to make some really cool retrofuturistic sci-fi porn.

The Covid-19 pandemic may well have dominated television news coverages for months, especially at its height in 2020, but that doesn’t detract from the immersive power of director Matthew Heineman’s new film The First Wave, which recounts in grim but pragmatic detail the experiences of those on the front line of New York’s response to the health crisis.