Search Results

The Offering Film Release In Cinema and On Virtual Cinemas and VOD Chris Olson Tuesday, July 6, 2021 at 9:44:06 AM UTC THE OFFERING , RELEASED 30th JULY 2021 Jan, mysterious and marked by a profound sense of guilt, tries to win back the love of his ex Violeta, who is now a psychiatrist, with a family of her own. Jan’s complex and perverse plan to reunite him with Violeta, 20 years after the events that led to their separation, will have severe consequences. An erotic, intense and revealing adult thriller, with powerful central performances from Alex Brendemühl (Transit ), Anna Alarcón (A Thief’s Daughter ) and Verónica Echegui (Fortitude ), winner of Best Supporting Actress at this year’s Gaudi Awards, THE OFFERING is a remarkable, gripping excursion into the human psyche and the true nature of love and obsession. Filled with searing love scenes and unsettling mind-games, it’s a sensual, evocative and multi-layered experience, exploring forgiveness and guilt, and the consequences of a destructive love triangle, recalling the work of provocative Spanish directors Bigas Luna (The Ages of Lulu ) and Julio Medem (Sex and Lucia ). Ventura Durall, writer and director of THE OFFERING , set up the production company Nanouk Films in 2000, to promote Catalan cinema. His feature film The Two Lives of Andrés Rabadán was recognized as the Best European Independent Film at the 2009 ECU Festival in Paris, and also received three Gaudi Awards for Best Lead Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Actress. His 2014 documentary drama Bugarach won the FIPRESCI Award at the St. Petersburg Message to Man Film Festival. THE OFFERING IS RELEASED ON 30TH JULY, IN CINEMA AND ON VIRTUAL CINEMAS AND VOD. The King's Man UK Home Release Date Announced The Latest King’s Man Film Will be Available on Digital February 9 and 4K Ultra HD™, Blu-ray™ and DVD on February 21. Read Now BFI Future Film Festival announces 2022 Awards Jury and full programme Find out who the jury is for the 2022 BFI Future Film Festival. Read Now The Wonderful: Stories From The Space Station UK Release Date The Wonderful: Stories from the Space Station is a Dog Star Films production in association with Fisheye Films. Directed by Clare Lewins (I Am Ali, Kareem: Minority of One, The Lost Tapes of Memphis.). Read Now Redemption of a Rogue UK Cinema Release Date ​ Read Now Cryptozoo Coming to Mubi This October Having made a splash at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, filmmaker Dash Shaw's upcoming fantasy animation Cryptozoo is a highly anticipated film coming to Mubi later this year. Read Now Another Round UK DVD And Blu-Ray Release Date Announced Following its acclaimed cinema release, STUDIOCANAL are excited to announce the release of Thomas Vinterberg’s intoxicating Oscar winner, ANOTHER ROUND, starring Mads Mikkelsen, on early EST 24th September 2021 and DVD, Blu-ray and Digital on 27th September 2021. Read Now Marvel Studios Announces Black Widow DVD and Blu-Ray UK Release Date Marvel Studios Announces Black Widow To Land Early On Digital (August 10th) and 4K, Blu-Ray and DVD September 13th. Read Now My Little Sister Gets October UK Release Date My Little Sister is due for a cinema release in the UK, on Friday 8th October 2021. Read Now Grimmfest Reveals Line-Up for 2021 Film Festival After a year of “home invasions” in the form of virtual screenings and online events, this October sees Grimmfest returning to the cinema at last. Read Now Helen Mirren Narrates Powerful Documentary Escape From Extinction Kaleidoscope Entertainment presents Escape From Extinction, a powerful feature documentary narrated by Academy Award winner Dame Helen Mirren, coming to selected cinemas from 17th September celebrating ‘Great Big Green Week’ (18-26 September). Read Now Supernova UK DVD and Blu-Ray Release Date Following critical acclaim and standout performances, STUDIOCANAL are excited to announce the release of the heartbreaking British love story SUPERNOVA, arriving on EST 24th September 2021 and DVD and Blu-ray on 27th September 2021. Read Now The Djinn UK Release Date The story follows a mute twelve-year-old, Dylan Jacobs, as he discovers a mysterious book of spells inside his new apartment. Read Now Come Play UK Digital Release Date Jacob Chase’s directorial debut feature COME PLAY tells the story of Oliver, a solitary autistic boy who comes across a creepy children’s story on his new tablet. Read Now 15m Giant Starfish in Leicester Square Ahead of UK Release of The Suicide Squad British actor Peter Capaldi (BBC’s Doctor Who, World War Z) ‒ who stars in THE SUICIDE SQUAD alongside Margot Robbie, Idris Elba and John Cena as genius scientist ‘Thinker’, was bravely photographed with the imposing creature Starro in London’s Leicester Square earlier today in celebration of the film’s UK release this coming Friday. Read Now West Side Story In Cinemas December 2021 From acclaimed director Steven Spielberg, the 2021 remake of West Side Story will be coming to cinemas in December 2021. Read Now The Last Job UK Digital and DVD Release Date Screen icon Richard Dreyfuss takes on The Last Job in a brand new, all-action thriller, that stars Modern Family’s Mira Sorvino as his daughter. This rip-roaring gangster movie hits the UK on DVD and digital this August from 101 Films. Read Now Rise of the Footsoldier Origins UK Cinema Release The eagerly-awaited RISE OF THE FOOTSOLDIER: ORIGINS, starring legendary leading man Vinnie Jones, is showing exclusively in cinemas from September 3, courtesy of Signature Entertainment. Read Now Random Acts of Violence UK DVD and Blu-ray Release Date Jay Baruchel writes, directs and stars in his horror debut Random Acts of Violence, which makes its UK Blu-ray debut from Acorn Media International in conjunction with Shudder, following its success on the streaming service. Read Now Spirited Away 20th Anniversary Special Edition SPIRITED AWAY COLLECTOR’S BOXSET WITH DVD & BLU-RAY DOUBLEPLAY AVAILABLE 27 SEPTEMBER 2021 Read Now A New World Order Premieres in UK 23 August Black Mirror meets A Quiet Place in gripping sci-fi thriller A New World Order from director Daniel Raboldt in his feature debut, which gets its UK premiere on DVD and digital 23 August 2021 from Reel 2 Reel Films. Read Now

HOME | FILMS | REVIEWS Birth/Rebirth Film Review average rating is 3 out of 5 Critic: Hope Madden | Posted on: Aug 16, 2023 Directed by: Laura Moss Written by: Laura Moss, Brendan J. O'Brien Starring: Marin Irelane, Judy Reyes Birth/Rebirth opens on two different women performing two different tasks in a hospital. Their paths will cross, but at the moment, Celie (Judy Reyes, Smile ) and Rose (Marin Ireland, The Dark and Wicked ) are revealing something of themselves to us. Celie’s environment: chaotic, human. A prenatal nurse used to comforting and nurturing patients in need while navigating an emergency, Celie is a tight balance of empathy and control. Rose – alone with a cadaver in a pathology lab in the bowels of the hospital – is a fastidious loner, cold, logical. She is pure science. Their story, like Barbie’s, is about how impossible it is to be a woman. Director Laura Moss moves seamlessly from short to feature with this modern take on Frankenstein and motherhood. Tragedy strikes early in Moss’s film. Overworked and under rested, Celie blames herself for her daughter Lila’s death. And now the hospital can’t even find the girl’s body. But Rose can. Little by little, with motives simultaneously opposed and identical, Celie and Rose become a duo. An odd couple, if you will, each with her own responsibilities, both with the same goal: bring Lila back. Ireland’s Rose is an exceptional ghoul because her every behavior feels rooted in reality, which makes her both repugnant and sympathetic. However cold her behavior seems, there’s logic behind it. Her joy, those rare flashes, hit harder. She’s like a macabre Spock. Reyes is her equal and opposite, compassionate but hard-headed. And as their relationship thickens, you see each woman changing thanks to exposure to the other. Rose slowly warms and becomes more human. Celie inches closer and closer to ghoul. The film amounts to a profound parenting nightmare, and each actor takes on the role of parent to create an unnerving dynamic again guided by authenticity. All of it pulls the psychological scabs of exhausted parenting. Moss can’t quite stick the landing, but her shoestring Frankenstein fable feels closer to the truth than most of them. About the Film Critic Hope Madden Theatrical Release < All Reviews Next Film Review >

HOME | FILMS | REVIEWS Unwashed Film Review average rating is 3 out of 5 Critic: William Hemingway | Posted on: Jan 11, 2022 Directed by: Ankita Ranjan Written by: Stephen Stallone Thomas Starring: Stephen Stallone Thomas, Thomas Royal Pierce (Thomas) and Devon (Royal) have something they need to talk about. They have come back together after a couple of years apart and are still divided over an issue that hangs about them like the smell of old laundry. Strangely their new meet-cute takes place in a small laundrette and once their washing is in the machines the inevitable topic of conversation rears its head ready for a public airing. Right off the bat things don't flow smoothly for the two young men, with their lead opener and resultant conversation appearing to be too obviously scripted as well as badly recorded on the audio track. It doesn't take long for them to get into the swing of things though and once they settle down into a rhythm the audio seems to sort itself out and we can be receptive to the difficult feelings that they need to share with one another. Naturally, their conversation turns to the last time they were together. A fateful night which changed both of their lives and which was supposed to be the start of something new and beautiful for the two of them. Obviously things didn't turn out the way that either of them had hoped and a giant gulf opened up between the pair with Devon disappearing into the wind and Pierce being left with no answers. Now Pierce has moved on with his life, but he is still haunted by questions and the 'what if's' that circle endlessly round his brain. Devon, on the other hand, wonders if there's still a chance to rekindle an old flame. Unwashed then, obviously owes a lot to My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) in terms of tone, style and setting. It deals with the relationship (and resultant fallout) of a young, interracial gay couple and exposes the barriers – societal, familial and personal – that are placed in their way. In its eight minute runtime it obviously can't match Hanif Kureishi and Stephen Frears' classic in terms of depth and exposure, but it does manage to take a situation that is an all too common occurrence and lay it bare in an accessible and deeply affecting manner. The performances from Stephen Stallone Thomas and Thomas Royal, despite their shaky start, come across as very natural and engaging. Their conversation is one that is relatable to a lot of people and it is easy to imagine countless other couples having to play out the same scenario, sharing the same difficult truths, trying to answer the same unanswerable questions, saying the same words to each other as Pierce and Devon do. Thomas' script is in large measure to thank for that. Again, after the dip in quality at the beginning of the film, the sound editing comes to add a lot to the feeling of the scenario, with the hum-drum of the machines constantly in the background and occasional clicks and buzzers punctuating the dialogue. The music is well placed too, with two original tracks playing alongside the story, matching it frame for frame in an evocation of the excitement and loss felt throughout. Interestingly, there is also a definite link here between Unwashed and another short film, from writer/director Matthew Puccini, named Dirty (2020). It, too, deals with a young, interracial gay couple navigating the difficulties of a fledgling relationship and also manages to find its way into a small laundrette in its denouement. Rather strikingly the themes, conversations and content of the films match up so well that Unwashed could be considered as a companion piece or spiritual successor to Dirty ; a lingering idea of what could have happened, or what might come next, as a possible continuation of the story. This incredibly close alignment of the two short films may detract some of the originality from Unwashed but in no way does that affect the final product. It merely shows the universality of the story being told and hints at how important the subject matter is to young, creative voices. Unwashed , on its own, is an accomplished take on an important story and despite its minor foibles manages to stand proud amongst its contemporaries. About the Film Critic William Hemingway Short Film, LGBTQ+ < All Reviews Next Film Review >

★★★★ Directed by: #ChristopherDeakin Starring: #GemmaWhiteley, #AdamMercuryBrown, #JoyceBranagh, #AshleyGregory, #EleanorJessicaRoberts Short Film Review by: Alexandra James A Happy Ending is a spoof reality television show that pokes fun at some of the court room dramas we see today. The show focuses on a young married couple and displays their inner conflicts with one another. For wife Lizzie, she is prepared to divorce her husband for not ever being able to satisfy her in all areas…but specifically in the bedroom! This dark comedy is a combination of Judge Judy, Love Island dramas and absurdity all wrapped up in a show called ‘Out of Order.’  For main character Lizzie, regrettably, this was unforgiveable, and she was ready to take her life into her own hands, her husband’s money and then leave him! However, as the drama progresses, certain secrets come to light and the audience discover that Lizzie is not as squeaky clean as she presents herself to be. As like many of these shows, the audience feed off this scandal and the juicier the scandals become, the better! The short film begins in a court room, its all lights, camera action as the jury take their seats and listen to Ms Who’s tales of woes and the lack of satisfaction she has had to endure for a good few years. Their marriage is in turmoil and there’s no coming back from this, especially when we find out husband David Ducksoup has been going to certain places alone to get his kicks elsewhere…For our Judge this appeared to be a clear-cut case, however, certain witnesses began to shed light on the couple’s marriage which left the judge having to make some tough decisions. A Happy Ending is a witty and outrageous film that keeps you hooked until the very end. It was great to see some of those ‘behind the scenes’ moments where the director instructs some of the reality stars to add more tears at this point or show your angry side when you say this line. Many people believe each scene is authentic and completely unfabricated. However, nothing we see on TV is ever how it truly is, which made for a hilarious premise and managed to break down that wall between fact and fiction and showed us exactly what was behind the curtain. The characters themselves were very funny and combined with the comical storyline and dialogue, it makes for an entertaining show that I would certainly be investing in if it came into fruition!

★★★ Starring: #DevonGrevious, #NateReynolds, #TylerMcCray Directed by: #NateReynolds Short Film Review by: Alexandra James Shear Disturbance focuses on the theme of anxiety and how much it can affect day to day activities such as the simple act of getting a haircut. For protagonist Tyronne, this typical action becomes far more than that and is such a trigger that he becomes completely consumed by even the thought of it. This can be a very real experience for many people that suffer with anxiety, it can become debilitating and stop you from going about your daily life. Director Nate Reynolds portrays these struggles and highlights the importance of patience and understanding when interacting with a person struggling to keep their anxiety under control. The narrative itself is very simple and I think although this is a short film, it would have been great to truly expose the pain within the anxiety. It would have helped the storyline further to pull back the covers of Tyronne’s mind and provide the audience a sense of what it feels like to have this fear. The physical signs were apparent with the trembling and shyness when speaking to the barbers. However, a cutaway of Tyronne’s mental state would convey the severity and seriousness of his condition. It was interesting to see the negativity towards Tyronne as well, the barber seemed to have little to no patience and believed that Tyronne was wasting his time and essentially fooling around. Nate was able to suggest that we need to be more perceptive and recognise the signs of anxiety to help that person and bring them into a calmer and more relaxed environment to support and keep their anxiety under control. Unfortunately, for Tyronne, the experience became all too much, and he was unable to control his emotions and left the shop disappointed in himself. However, another barber came out after him and reassures him that he is not alone. In fact, he has also experienced these feelings and encourages Tyronne to speak with someone to overcome his struggles. Shear Disturbance has a message within, and director Nate Reynolds uses this short film to tear down the stigma and shame of living with anxiety and instead, Reynolds concentrates on the importance of speaking about this subject and sharing these struggles as this will ultimately educate others to understand more about the experience as well as learn how to help and manage them.

★★★★★ Starring: #IsidoraFairhurst, #MiaMckennaBruge, #RitaBernardShaw, #DaniDyer, #MalachiPullarLatchman Directed by: #TeddyNygh Short Film Review by: Alexandra James Watch What I Do is an all-female cast and short drama. It focuses on 3 teenage girls in secondary school attempting to navigate their way through friendship, social status, and their love for basketball. Being a teenager today can be a difficult transition, emotions and arguments become heightened and at this point in life. Conflicts at this age are all consuming and it becomes difficult to break away and see the light, as well as ignore the negativity. This becomes the case for protagonist Layla, as she struggles to become friends with the new girl joining the group. Layla often feels excluded and is unable to connect with Nikki, who chooses to disregard or shame Layla as a form of one-upmanship making her appear to be the ‘popular’ friend out of the group. Layla must find a way to channel her anger and focus on what is most important to her, true friendship, and her passion for sport. Layla’s skills in basketball become clear when she walks past a court and jumps at the chance to make a shot, she is encouraged by the other players to join and be a part of the team. However, through fear of ridicule she shy’s away from this opportunity and ignores their praise. Instead, she is left feeling embarrassed and even more of an outcast by showing an interest in the sport. It became evident that Layla has some form of anger issues which she needs to work on. Layla often represses these thoughts of violence and aggression; the viewer is given snippets of Layla’s frustrated mind with use of cutaway shots. Her anger becomes fuelled when faced with conflict, and unfortunately for Layla she becomes tested to her limit as Nikki starts to put a wedge between her and her friendship with Kezia. Layla has managed to control this anger for a long period of time, however, like a bubbling pot, it does not take long for this anger to spill. The characters are extremely relatable, especially to teenagers growing up and learning to adapt and change throughout their school years and rise above the hate. Director Teddy Nygh breaks down some of the barriers that stop kids from being their true selves. Nygh highlights that for Layla, basketball gives her the chance to channel her energy, focus and discover some new friends who follow a similar passion. This was a great story, and the characters were able to really convey that emotion of betrayal, fear, hurt but also happiness and the importance of friendship. It was an enjoyable watch and the interactions between each character were engaging throughout, you really feel for Layla’s character and want her to overcome her fears and see the true bond between her and Kezia.