Cath Clarke

Director Maite Alberdi recounts how meeting Eleonor Alejandra Marín Mendoza, a Mexican hospital worker imprisoned for kidnapping a newborn, led to the Netflix documentary A Child of My Own. Alberdi initially believed Alejandra’s account that she had arranged to receive the baby from its mother, Mayra, but court evidence showed that Alejandra had posed as a social worker and taken the child without consent. The film combines a melodramatic reconstruction of Alejandra’s story with interviews and evidence, while examining the intense pressure placed on women in Mexico and Latin America to marry and have children. It does not excuse the crime, and gives particular attention to Mayra’s continuing trauma and anger.

Maryam Ebrahimi’s documentary follows injured veterans of the war against Islamic State living in a rehabilitation home in Rojava, northern Syria. The film focuses particularly on female Kurdish fighters, including commander Sorkhin, known for rescuing Yazidi women and girls enslaved by IS, and Zarin, a sniper left with a serious brain injury. It portrays their courage, solidarity and ongoing psychological and physical suffering with tenderness, while noting that more historical context about Kurdish women’s battalions would have strengthened the film.

Artist and filmmaker Imran Perretta discusses how being stopped and searched by police at 13, amid heightened post-9/11 Islamophobia, and losing his mother to cancer shaped his debut feature Ish. Set in Luton, the monochrome coming-of-age film follows grieving 12-year-old Ish and his friend Maram, exploring childhood, Muslim identity, friendship and the forced intrusion of adult systems into children’s lives. Perretta co-wrote the film with Enda Walsh, cast local first-time actors and drew on his experience as a visual artist to portray Luton with grandeur rather than austerity. The film has received strong reviews and is being compared with Kes and Satyajit Ray’s Apu trilogy.

Pinocchio: Unstrung, directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield, adapts the public-domain character as a murderous doll in the Twisted Childhood Universe. The film follows young James and his grieving inventor grandfather Geppetto, who brings Pinocchio to life as a companion, only for the puppet to interpret James’s wish that his bullies were dead literally. The review finds the film’s black comedy smirking and unpleasant, its slasher scenarios derivative, its gore unconvincing and its shocks largely absent. It also criticizes a sexualized shower scene involving a character presented as a schoolkid.

Giuseppe Tornatore’s documentary-drama traces Brunello Cucinelli’s rise from a poor farming family to the owner of a billion-dollar cashmere empire. While the film presents Cucinelli as a charming, socially responsible employer who has invested in his workers and restored historic buildings, its sentimental reconstructions and relentless praise turn the portrait into a lavish vanity project. The review concludes that it feels more suited to staff induction than a general cinema audience.

A Mexican queer coming-of-age drama follows 18-year-old Eduardo, who travels to Guadalajara for a university entrance exam and embarks on an exhilarating night of sex, friendship, partying and self-discovery with student Mario. Despite familiar elements and a brief encounter with a predatory older man, the film remains joyful rather than dark, emphasizing pleasure, desire and Mario’s accepting family. Its slightness may limit its impact, but strong young performances and an honest portrayal of a transformative first night make it effective.

Daniele Rugo’s documentary follows doctors undertaking medical missions to Gaza since October 2023. Their restrained testimony and video diaries describe overwhelming casualties, repeated explosions, shortages, personal grief and the destruction of hospitals and other medical facilities. The film also highlights the extraordinary endurance of Palestinian medical workers and presents medics as important independent witnesses amid restrictions on foreign journalists entering Gaza. Israel’s allegations that Hamas uses hospitals for military purposes are noted alongside Hamas’s denial.

Peter Benedict’s tiny-budget film, adapted from his play Deadlock, follows a right-wing shadow cabinet minister who hires a 19-year-old male sex worker, setting off increasingly implausible blackmail and double-crosses. Benedict gives an exaggerated performance as the sleazy MP, but the film’s single basement setting and theatrical presentation make it feel like a recorded stage production. The review also considers its portrayal of Tory privilege dated in the post-David Cameron and Boris Johnson era.

Iranian filmmaker and women’s-rights activist Mahnaz Mohammadi discusses her arrests, torture and solitary confinement under Iran’s regime, experiences that shaped her fictional film Roya. Despite being banned from filmmaking, she secretly shot parts of the film in Iran and continues to create work about state violence, including the documentary Beyond the Lies. Living temporarily in Europe but rejecting refugee status, Mohammadi says she intends to return to Iran and views filmmaking as a form of resistance, expressing confidence that a younger generation will eventually overthrow the Islamic Republic.

The film follows teenager Finn and his younger brother Charlie as they flee a family separation and travel 500 miles from Sheffield to Dingle to stay with their grandfather, played by Bill Nighy. Adapted from Mark Lowery’s novel Charlie and Me, the story moves between the journey and flashbacks to a past tragedy blamed on the grandfather. The review finds the cast capable but criticises the film’s sentimentality, twee musical moments and increasingly implausible emotional resolution.

The horror film reimagines the Morrígan, an Irish goddess of death and war, as a pagan queen massacred by Christians whose spirit possesses the teenage daughter of an archaeologist. The review argues that although the premise invokes misogyny and historical patriarchy, the film reduces its central figure to a conventional vengeful monster. Predictable horror imagery, a formulaic plot and a criticized nude bath scene contribute to an ultimately humdrum experience.

The Amazon Prime sequel to My Fault: London adapts the second installment of Mercedes Ron’s romance trilogy, following the secret relationship between step-siblings Noah and Nick. Set partly at Oxford and among wealthy London characters, the film introduces romantic complications and Nick’s new corporate life, but the review finds little chemistry, humor, convincing wealth or sexual tension, concluding that it fails to deliver the passion and fizz expected from the franchise.

Icelandic body-horror film Thirst follows Hjörtur, a 1,000-year-old vampire obsessed with removing men’s genitals, and his encounter with Hulda, a woman harassed by police after her brother’s drug-overdose death. Styled as a trashy, synth-heavy 1980s midnight movie, the film delivers extreme gore and occasional cult-worthy comic moments, while Hjörtur Sævar Steinason provides an entertaining performance. However, the review finds the acting generally weak and the film devoid of deeper meaning, metaphor or lasting impact.

Tracy Choi’s queer coming-of-age drama follows Lok through three periods of her life, portrayed by three actors: as a 17-year-old in Macau, a student in Taiwan, and a 34-year-old film director in Hong Kong. The story explores first love, coming out to her parents, career uncertainty and pressures around domestic commitment and parenthood. Its understated family and relationship scenes feel authentic and emotionally perceptive, although the film occasionally meanders and does not fully overcome its imperfections.

Jonathan Sobol’s sci-fi drama follows computer scientist Annika Cask, played by Isabelle Fuhrman, as she joins a secret Caribbean project investigating Perry Glassner’s device for communicating with extraterrestrial life. David Thewlis brings energy and menace to the narcissistic physicist, but extended astrophysics-heavy conversations drain the film of momentum. The review finds the film’s treatment of the alien reveal clever yet ultimately more sleepy than awe-inspiring.

Gary Owen’s acclaimed play Iphigenia in Splott has been adapted into the Welsh-language film Effi o Blaenau, with Leisa Gwenllian starring as a young woman navigating poverty, drinking, pregnancy and tragedy. Director Marc Evans and producer Branwen Cennard relocated the story from Cardiff to the Welsh-speaking former slate-mining town of Blaenau Ffestiniog and insisted on making it in Welsh with subtitles. The filmmakers connect the story’s enduring relevance to austerity, deteriorating public services and class inequality, while the production also seeks to address gender and representation concerns through prominent female crew appointments.

Iranian-British filmmaker Ash Koosha made the 75-minute drama Dreams of Violets in roughly two and a half months, using AI to generate every image and character. Based on journalism, footage and eyewitness accounts of Iran’s crackdown on anti-government protesters, the film is set to become the first fully AI-generated live-action feature screened in a major film festival’s selection, at Tribeca. Koosha argues that AI can let independent filmmakers create visually ambitious work at a fraction of traditional costs, while acknowledging concerns about soulless output, actors’ rights and the future of creative jobs. He predicts a decentralized industry of AI-enabled mini-studios, though the technology’s artistic and economic consequences remain uncertain.

A low-budget British comedy follows Bonnie, Clive and hitchhiker Wilco as they travel from south London to Cornwall in a camper van just before a Covid lockdown. Although the cast and crew appear to have enjoyed making the film, the review finds its whimsical songs, exaggerated performances and relentlessly quirky humor irritating and ineffective. Scenic stops including Stonehenge, Dartmoor and the Eden Project provide visual interest, but do not overcome the film’s weak comedic execution.

Olivia Vinall gives a fierce performance as Leonora Carrington in a biopic tracing her escape from London to Paris, relationship with Max Ernst, wartime mental health crisis and eventual life in Mexico. The film effectively depicts her psychiatric abuse and independence but is criticized for dull storytelling, clunky dialogue and a lack of imagination, while omitting the dramatic episode in which her parents sent her former nanny to rescue her. Carrington’s later recognition is noted, including a record auction sale exceeding £22.5m in 2024.

Leo Woodall plays Niki, a piano tuner with exceptionally sensitive hearing, opposite Dustin Hoffman as his veteran colleague Harry in a relaxed New York crime drama. Niki's unusual auditory abilities enable him to crack a safe, drawing him into a scheme involving Uri, a home-security businessman who robs his own clients, while a romance develops with composer Ruthie. The review praises Woodall and Hoffman's easy chemistry, the film's tender character moments and its understated atmosphere, but finds the crime plot increasingly predictable.