Film Festival News | Little White Lies

Festivals

Older woman with dark hair and younger woman with red hair and glasses, both looking directly at the camera.
Festivals

Janet Planet – first-look review

by Charles Bramesco

Annie Baker’s debut feature about a mother and daughter is magical and assured drama that announces the Pulitzer Prize winner as a filmmaking talent as well as a literary one.
Black and white image showing a man lying down, with a woman leaning over him. They appear to be outdoors in a wooded setting.
Festivals

Green Border – first-look review

by Charles Bramesco

Veteran filmmaker Agnieszka Holland offers a stirring, stark depiction of the refugee situation in Europe, as Syrians fleeing war face harrowing interrogation at the Polish-Belarusian border.
A woman with long blonde hair holding a gun in a dark setting.
Festivals

Baltimore – first-look review

by David Jenkins

Imogen Poots shines in this angular, fragmented portrait of English rose-turned-firebrand activist Rose Dugdale from Irish filmmakers Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy.
A man sitting on the ground, hugging his knees in a forest setting. He appears pensive, with a serious expression on his face.
Festivals

All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt – first-look review

by Charles Bramesco

Raven Jackson’s feature debut announces a striking visual talent, following the story of a young woman’s life in rural Mississippi.
A black and white image showing a group of people queuing outside a shop window, some wearing suits or casual clothing.
Festivals

Celluloid Underground – first-look review

by David Jenkins

This fascinating and melancholy documentary sees an Iranian exile in London looking back to the stranger-than-fiction roots of his formative cinephelia.
Couple embracing on hillside overlooking rural landscape.
Festivals

Un Amor – first-look review

by David Jenkins

This steamy and giddily uneven rural romance from Spanish filmmaker Isabel Coixet is almost saved by Laia Costa’s committed central performance.
A man applying face paint, looking intently in a mirror. His face is partially covered in bright red paint.
Festivals

Kalak – first-look review

by David Jenkins

This Greenland-set drama from Danish director Isabella Eklöf, about a husband and father dealing with the trauma of abuse, makes for oppressively grim and only occasionally revelatory viewing.
B&W image shows a group of people at a formal event. An older woman in a satin dress speaks with a smiling man.
Festivals

Inside the South African film festival challenging perceptions of Afrikaans cinema

by John Besche

Now in its eleventh year, Cape Town’s Silwerskermfees aims to shine a light on the diversity and talent at the heart of the Afrikaans-speaking filmmaking community.
Three people, two men and one woman, walking together on a path in a green, wooded area.
Festivals

A Silence – first-look review

by David Jenkins

Reliable Belgian director Joachim Lafosse serves up more lurid scandal sheet fodder in this dismal tale of a wife and mother trying to sweep her husband’s vile transgressions under the rug.
Three suited men, one older with glasses, sitting in the back of a car.
Festivals

Ex-Husbands – first-look review

by David Jenkins

Amiable American comedy of dented male egos in which Griffin Dunne’s recent divorcee accidentally crashes his son’s bachelor party.