Shalini Adnani knows what it means to belong to more than one place. Born and raised in Chile in a Sindhi family of Indian origin before later moving to London, the writer-director grew up with different cultures and, as she tells us, “two different value systems”. That experience found its way into her first feature,…
Tag: BFI LFF
70th BFI London Film Festival: “Our Share of Sand” Review
Maya comes to India to spend time with her father, and soon finds herself being asked to protect him. For a twelve-year-old who has lived in Britain, the reunion brings the promise of getting to know a parent from whom she has been separated. In Shalini Adnani’s debut feature, Our Share of Sand, that promise…
70th BFI London Film Festival: “A Girl Unknown” Review
Giving a child a new name and expecting the old life to disappear with it is simply cruel. A name is supposed to tell us who somebody is, yet in Zou Jing’s A Girl Unknown, names become evidence of how often one young girl has been asked to begin again. Six years old when we…
70th BFI London Film Festival: “Fruit Gathering” Review
Life does not offer San Kyi many choices, and although she sometimes thinks about leaving Yangon and returning to her village, she knows there may be very little work waiting for her there, which means the long days she spends in a garment factory are not simply something she can walk away from whenever she…
Asian Cinema at the 70th BFI London Film Festival
The BFI London Film Festival has unveiled the programme for its 70th edition, and Asian cinema will once again form an essential part of the celebration. From long-awaited works by some of the continent’s most respected filmmakers to daring debuts, intimate documentaries and large-scale genre spectacles, this year’s selection reflects the extraordinary breadth of filmmaking…
How Annemarie Jacir Brings Palestine’s Forgotten Uprising to the Screen – “Palestine 36” Review
Some filmmakers tell stories, and some preserve entire histories through their work. Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir belongs to the latter. Across her extraordinary career, from Salt of This Sea to When I Saw You and Wajib, Jacir’s work comes from a place of honesty, an understanding of her people’s struggle, and a refusal to let their…
69th BFI London Film Festival: In Conversation with Calif Chong, Isabella Wei and Matthew P. Scott of “High Wire”
Hong Kong director Calif Chong’s debut feature, High Wire, makes a striking entrance, a film that is at once humorous, compelling, and real. Best known for her acclaimed 2019 short Underneath, Chong ventures into feature territory with a story that examines the delicate balance of duty and desire, the weight of parental expectation, and the…
69th BFI London Film Festival: “Hair, Paper, Water” Review
Vietnamese cinema has long existed in the margins of Southeast Asian film culture, overshadowed by the global recognition of its regional neighbours. Yet, in recent years, a resurgence has begun to take shape, led by filmmakers whose work values poetic observation over plot. Among them, Trương Minh Quý. His latest collaboration with Belgian filmmaker Nicolas…
69th BFI London Film Festival: “Island of the Winds” Review
Hsu Ya-Ting’s Island of the Winds is a heart-rending documentary that immerses the viewer in the often-overlooked lives of the elderly residents of Lesheng Sanatorium, a former leper colony on the outskirts of Taipei. From the very first moments, the film builds an intimate closeness to its subjects, allowing their memories and struggles to surface…
69th BFI London Film Festival: “With Hasan in Gaza” Review
Few films feel as urgent as With Hasan in Gaza. Especially now, when Palestinian voices are so often drowned out, this documentary resurrects what has been erased: streets, faces, and laughter that once existed in Gaza before repeated cycles of war and occupation. While Palestine continues to endure military occupation and the horrors of genocide,…
69th BFI London Film Festival: “Human Resource” Review
Abortion remains one of the most polarising debates in the world: a subject weighed down by politics, religion, and morality, but rarely centred on the lived experiences of the women forced to make impossible choices. Too often, the men who play a part in unplanned pregnancies can walk away, while women are left carrying the…
66th BFI London Film Festival: “Decision to Leave” Review
It may not seem like it at first glance, but Park Chan-wook’s films are those of a distinctly romantic disposition. His narratives typically explore the tension that arises when erotic and emotional idealism meets cold, hard reality; in his films, the only happy romances can be found in either the dispassionate confines of a mental…
