The cheerful critique

Black Dog of Bouley Bay

An old man tells the tale of his dark past in Jersey. After warning two young men not to go to the bay, they do... and they regret it.

God on Our Side

Inspired by Picasso's Guernica (1937), this film is fundamentally about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Mirror Rim

A troubled young man discovers a secret from his childhood when he returns home for a funeral.

Politzek, the voices that challenge the Kremlin

In Russia, criticizing the war in Ukraine or Vladimir Putin’s regime has become a crime. Thousands of ordinary citizens are being arrested, tried, and imprisoned. They are called “Politzek”: political prisoners. Filmed clandestinely over the course of more than a year, Politzek gives a platform to those who, despite the fear, continue to speak out against Putin’s repressive Russia. Through the intersecting stories of a teenager sentenced to five years in prison for criticizing the government on social media, a young artist jailed for placing anti-war stickers, a human rights activist, and two theater directors facing Kafkaesque trials, the film unveils the machinery of state repression in Russia. With rare footage, broken yet unyielding voices, this is a story of silenced resistance.

To Rosa

Rosa, 15, lives in an oyster-farming family. As her gravely ill father nears death, the support of Adel, her childhood friend, forges a new bond between them. In this fragile in-between, Rosa moves forward and falters…

Bacio

Happy Anniversary

So Near, Yet So Far

It's love at first sight for the Boy, but obstacles— namely shyness, and the temerity of other suitors— place themselves in the way of his love. Unknowingly, the Boy and the young woman of his fancy both stay at the home of mutual friends— But all is not well, as robbers lurk outside the house.

Escape

Awakening on the floor of a destroyed suburban bedroom, we discover a global invasion has begun and we are not alone in the house.

The Deep End

Lucille, an introverted eleven year old girl, live with her parents, who are caretakers of the swimming pool in which they stay. Because of the weirdness of this place, which looks like a flying saucer, an awful anguish comes out of Lucille's mind. The "unidentified frightening object" of her confusion would happen to be even more obsessing than all fears of childhood.

Escape Attempt

A soldier escapes from a World War II concentration camp. Once he gets out, he finds himself on an unknown planet in an unknown future controlled by a homicidal alien race.

Blink

Blink is a sci-fi short film about a man living in two different realities. Every day is a new day in the life of Neeraj. But what will happen when Neeraj realizes that his current reality is about to collide with his other one?

Americano

On the eve of deportation, a refugee hacker fights for a chance at the American dream after he is betrayed by a politician using him to sway public opinion.

Unfamiliar Ties

Tatiana Catatônica

When Tatiana's friends find her catatonic, they decide to gather the group of friends to try to help her. Between mystical and medical approaches, they realize that to wake Tatiana up they must call Arthur, her ex-boyfriend. When he arrives, he manages to snap her out of the trance, but not in the way they expected.

Summer Romance

This delightful short is a world away from Tomomatsu's later works. It's a lovely story, told well. The reason that I tracked it down is because I'm quite a fan of Alice Sailor's music. She fronts new wave band Amaryllis and I was curious to see her acting. She has frequently supplied theme songs and other music to several of Tomomatsu's films. Indeed, the most disturbing sequence in this movie is accompanied by a psychotic Amaryllis track, 'Haha', and the closing piece is another Amaryllis song, 'Usagi'. This rip comes from the 'Eat The Schoolgirl' DVD, where it was one of the extras. Having just watched the main feature from that disc, I can say with some certainty that I found this tale far more enjoyable.

The Day I Remembered the Trip to Bicuda

I always left that memory buried deep in my mind. Until one day she came back as a movie.

The Wallet

A man who has just lost a job opportunity finds a wallet. But... what would have happened if he hadn't seen it, or if he decided to return it to its owner, or if he kept the money?

Herrmann

Herrmann is a leftist Thirty Something, who is still politically active, despite beginning to live the usual life of having a girlfriend and a child. On the way to his weekly political meeting he is kidnapped.

A Twelve-Year Night

Uruguay, 1973. Having been crushed by the military dictatorship, surviving members of the Tupamaro guerillas are imprisoned and tortured. They must find a way to endure the coming 12 years.

Plan A

Germany 1945, Max, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, meets a radical group of Jewish resistance fighters, who, like him, lost all hope for their future after they were robbed of their existence and their entire families were killed by the Nazis. They dream of retaliation on an epic scale for the Jewish people. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Max starts identifying with the group's monstrous plans...

Zama

In a remote South American colony in the late 18th century, officer Zama of the Spanish crown waits in vain for a transfer to a more prestigious location. He suffers small humiliations and petty politicking as he increasingly succumbs to lust and paranoia.

Argentina 1985

In the 1980s, a team of lawyers takes on the heads of Argentina's bloody military dictatorship in a battle against odds and a race against time.

Staring at Strangers

Carpenter Sergio runs away and hides in a closet after his boss fired him. When the closet arrives at its buyer's house, he decides to stay there, hiding in his new home living with an unknown family.

Pacto de Fuga

During the last years of Pinochet's military regime, a group of militants from the "Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front" plan a prison break of political prisoners, through a tunnel that will take them 18 months to dig.

The Red Virgin

Hildegart is conceived and educated by her mother Aurora to be the woman of the future, to become one of the most brilliant minds of Spain in the 1930s and one of the European references on female sexuality.

Agent Zeta

Four Spanish ex-intelligence officers are assassinated simultaneously worldwide. The CNI discovers all participated in the covert "Operation Ciénaga" decades ago in Colombia. Zeta, the CNI's best operative, must hunt and protect the sole survivor, facing his deadliest global mission yet. Top Colombian agent Alfa will join Zeta, seemingly knowing more about "Ciénaga"'s secrets than him.

The Quietude

Against the backdrop of a military dictatorship, Eugenia is reunited with her estranged family following her father’s stroke and is forced to confront dark secret.

The Experiment

20 men are chosen to participate in the roles of guards and prisoners in a psychological study that ultimately spirals out of control.

Munich - The Edge of War

At the tense 1938 Munich Conference, former friends who now work for opposing governments become reluctant spies racing to expose a Nazi secret.

The Stanford Prison Experiment

In 1971, Stanford's Professor Philip Zimbardo conducts a controversial psychology experiment in which college students pretend to be either prisoners or guards, but the proceedings soon get out of hand. Based on a true story.

Closet Land

A young writer is interrogated by a sadistic secret policeman. She is accused of embedding political messages in her children's stories. The entire movie takes place in one room, with only the two actors. The movie is set in an unidentified, modern police state.

The Truth About Emanuel

A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.

The Movie Teller

María Margarita is the youngest of four siblings in a family living in a mining town in the Atacama Desert (Chile). The most special time of the week for this family is Sunday, when they all go to the movies to enjoy stories that let them escape their everyday lives by transporting them to other worlds. The girl’s parents soon realise that the little girl has a very special gift: an almost uncanny ability to recount movies. The girl’s extraordinary talent will spread throughout the village, changing the fortunes of her family as the country is transformed forever.

600 Miles

Arnulfo Rubio smuggles weapons from Arizona to Mexico for a drug cartel, but he is being investigated by agent Harris. When agent Harris blows his covers, he and Arnulfo end up in a journey where he will be the hostage of this young criminal.

The House on Carroll Street

A reporter, fired after refusing to give names to a 1951 House Un-American Activities Committee, takes a part-time job as companion to an old lady. While working she overhears a noisy argument in the neighboring house, being conducted largely in German and involving her HUAC prosecutor. She begins to investigate, enlisting the help of the FBI Agent initially detailed to surveil her.

Panther

In this sprawling, fictionalized history of the Black Panthers, 1960s Oakland becomes a war zone as the Panthers battle for the right to exist.

SAS: Red Notice

An off-duty SAS soldier, Tom Buckingham, must thwart a terror attack on a train running through the Channel Tunnel. As the action escalates on the train, events transpire in the corridors of power that may make the difference as to whether Buckingham and the civilian passengers make it out of the tunnel alive.

She Walks in Darkness

A young agent leaves everything behind to pose as a member of ETA, risking her life to uncover the terrorists' hideouts in the south of France.