https://youtu.be/jV-ZrCxjoD4?list=PL933iMM6fGYIw78vqbQAreXAlh-cnkI9D Directed by Dorothy Allen-Pickard ★★★ There’s a certain image which comes with the term social housing – several images actually. Most postulated by tabloid papers or exploitative media, one of benefits, violence or the downtrodden. In reality – utter nonsense. A raw, often thriving sense of community exists in multiple social housing estates across … Continue reading Here. Us. Now – Cardboard Citizens
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqGRrAjYgq4&ab_channel=queerscreen Written & Directed by Michael Seligman & Jennifer Tiexiera USA/2020/101mins ★★★★ For over sixty years, a trove of the history, culture and experiences of female impersonators and their surrounding friends and allies sat undisturbed, forgotten and biding its time - then in 2014, hundreds of letters saw the light of day once more. A … Continue reading P.S Burn This Letter Please – BFI Flare
https://youtu.be/7M7_DVRlkYw Directed by Alastair Cole UK/ 2021/ 98 mins ★★★★ The Scottish fishing industry is in a position of political peacocking at present, a livelihood to throw around and place on a pedestal. But for the residents of the Island of Barra, fishing is more than an economic foundation – it is their heritage. But … Continue reading Iorram (Boat Song) – Glasgow Film Festival
Directed by Amel Alzakout Germany / 2020 / 67 mins ★★★★ Of the 300 passengers seeking salvation aboard a smuggler’s dinghy, at least forty-two perished, and director Amel Alzakout thought she would be one of them. She expected to die. Mercifully, most of us will never experience what Purple Sea documents. We will never find ourselves at … Continue reading Purple Sea – Document Film Festival
https://youtu.be/7OmtEff1E5o Directed by Miko Revereza USA / 2019 / 70 mins ★★★ Illegally crossing the border into America isn’t the end of the trials migrants face when desperately seeking a safer, more stable way of life. For Miko Revereza, twenty years after first arriving in the States, travelling anywhere comes with added risk. In making … Continue reading No Data Plan – Document Film Festival
Written & Directed by Jonathan Rescigno ★★★ Through the silence, memory wails its loudest song. A sleeping city, slowly engulfed by an almost cognitive fog, rolling its way across the high-rises and sinking deep into the earth. The usual perverse light of streetlamps, neon signs and cars are all but choked out by the creeping … Continue reading Strike or Die – Document Film Festival
https://youtu.be/0qX49Lqo12c Directed by Tonje Hessen Schei 2019/Norway/99mins ★★★★ The face of war has changed. And while the atrocities of it resonate on the battlefields, towns and homes of many – war has taken a digital stance, warping public perception and influencing the states of economy, unions and elections. Brexit, Trump, and many of those delightful … Continue reading iHuman – Review
Written by Ricardo Acosta & Peter Murimi Directed by Peter Murimi Kenya/2020/70mins ★★★ While identifying as gay isn’t strictly illegal in Kenya, the act of engaging in a relationship with someone of the same gender or sex is. An openly honest account of a young gay man’s struggles with receiving the equality he deserves, I Am … Continue reading I Am Samuel – BFI London Film Festival
https://youtu.be/hN6gA9obKxw Written & Directed by Midi Z Taiwan / 2014 / 95 mins ★★ Burmese director Midi Z latest film is a socially conscious remark on the two options facing the poor – both of which risk your life. One is to risk breaking your body with labour, amidst endless hours working for a pittance. The other … Continue reading Ice Poison – Taiwanese Film Festival
Sounds ridiculous, right? Scottish people, rapping. No, seriously. And not only is it accurate, but Scottish hip-hop is an exceptionally underestimated blending of nuanced storytelling, cultural portals and progression of lyric, rhythm and rhyme – and now, with the arts embracing the digital medium, Scottish People Can't Rap?! takes things to a new, virtual level. To change … Continue reading Scottish People Can’t Rap?! – Preview
