THE DAVID PARKINSON FILM BLOG

(Reviews of Dragonfly; and The Marbles) DRAGONFLY. It's hard to think that Paul Andrew Williams had been making features for two decades. His debut, London to Brighton (2006), feels like it was released yesterday, but he has since bolstered his reputation for springing surprises with The Cottage (2008), Cherry Tree Lane (2010), and Song For Marion (2012). He returned from a lengthy spell in television with the revenge thriller, Bull (2021), but changes tack completely with D

(Reviews of Palestine 36; and It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This) PARADISE 36. For some time now, Annemarie Jacir has been the most eloquent and considered voice in Palestinian cinema. Now, following on from Salt of the Sea (2007), When I Saw You (2012), and Wajib (2017), she has attempted her largest scale and most politically ambitious picture to date. Yet, for all its epic significance, Palestine 36, has an intimacy that makes it compel as a human drama, as well as impres

(Reviews of Sunlight; The House With Laughing Windows; and A Tooth Fairy Tale) SUNLIGHT. Although he directed a couple of plays for the stage, Tom Conti never got round to directing a feature film. Now, having cut her teeth with the documentary, His Master's Voice (2012), and the short, Living With Monkey (2014), ventriloquist-cum-actor daughter, Nina Conti, makes her feature bow behind the camera with Sunlight. When Roy Belvedere (Shenoah Allen) started dangling from a rope

(Reviews of Souleymane's Story; Madly; Good Boy; and Night of the Zoopocalypse) SOULEYMANE'S STORY. Following a series of documentary shorts inspired by his time in Vietnam, Boris Lojkine made his feature debut with Hope (2014), a docurealist drama about a Cameroonian boy and a Nigerian girl crossing the Sahara en route to Europe. Five years later, he produced Camille (2019), a biopic about photojournalist Camille Lepage, who was killed in 2014 while covering the civil war in

(An overview of the 69th BFI London Film Festival, 8-19 October 2025) WATCH THIS SPACE

(Reviews of Plainclothes; Urchin; and The Partisan) PLAINCLOTHES. Carmen Emmi started making films around the age of 14 and recalls...

(Reviews of Paul & Paulette Take a Bath; Better Days; Mr Blake At Your Service!; A Night Like This; Dead of Winter; and The Story of...

(Reviews of Happyend) HAPPYEND. Having captured his father's farewell performance in the deeply moving documentary, Ryuichi Sakamoto:...

(Reviews of Big Boys; Ebony & Ivory; and Dogs At the Opera) BIG BOYS. Corey Sherman has spent a decade making shorts such as Life-ish...

(Reviews of Christy; and Islands) CHRISTY. A very different Cork to the one seen in Peter Foott's The Young Offenders (2016) and its...

(Reviews of Sorry, Baby; and Row) SORRY, BABY. Encouraged by Moonlight director, Barry Jenkins, Eva Victor wrote their directorial debut...

(Reviews of Measures For a Funeral; Little Trouble Girls; and In the Nguyen Kitchen) MEASURES FOR A FUNERAL. Deragh Campbell has played...

(Reviews of The Regulars; The Ceremony; Bambi: A Tale of Life in the Woods; and Super-Charlie) THE REGULARS. Anyone hearing that Fil...

(Reviews of The Kingdom; and Heidi: Rescue of the Lynx) THE KINGDOM. Two very different sides of Corsica emerge in Jean-François Richet's...

(Reviews of Late Shift; 40 Acres; and Young Hearts) LATE SHIFT. Swiss director Petra Volpe has been making films since the turn of the...

(Reviews of What Does That Nature Say to You; Oslo Stories Trilogy: Dreams; and Savages) WHAT DOES THAT NATURE SAY TO YOU. The greatest...

(Reviews of Dying; and Zero) DYING. German director Matthias Glasner and actress Corinna Harfouch go back a long way. She took the lead...

(Reviews of Four Letters of Love; and The Road to Patagonia) FOUR LETTERS OF LOVE. Having previously explored the complexities of love...

(Reviews of The Other Way Round; The Shrouds; and Modì, Three Days on the Wing of Madness) THE OTHER WAY ROUND. The Truebas are the first...

(Reviews of An Ordinary Case; and Jungle Trouble) AN ORDINARY CASE. There's something of an overlap between Daniel Auteuil and the...