cinema

Film review: It Was Just an Accident

December 27, 2025 Garry ArnotLeave a comment

A key player within the new wave of Iranian cinema, writer and director Jafar Panahi has pushed boundaries for decades through his metacinematic tales of contemporary state surveillance. His latest piece is It Was Just an Accident, a darkly comic thriller that centres around a bizarre mystery. When mechanic Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) recognises the distinctive squeak of a prosthetic leg from a customer (Ebrahim Azizi), he suspects him to be his former tormentor from a stint in prison. Impulsively, he kidnaps the man, bundling him into the back of his van. However, as doubts set in over his true identity, he rallies together a line-up of fellow victims to help uncover the truth.

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cinema

Film review: Sentimental Value

December 21, 2025 Garry ArnotLeave a comment

The works of director Joachim Trier are often tied together by their tender explorations of existential emotions, the last of which, The Worst Person in the World, catapulted him into the hipster cinephile consciousness. This closed the chapter on his acclaimed ‘Oslo trilogy’ but his latest feature dabbles in the same thematic territory. Family drama Sentimental Value centres around theatre actor Nora (Renate Reinsve) who’s appearing in a stage production but suffers a severe panic attack backstage. When her mother passes away, she unites in grief with sister Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) and reconnects with her estranged filmmaking father Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård) who wants her to star in his new movie.

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Dragonfly Interview: Paul Andrew Williams – ‘If there’s a story I can tell that makes people feel something, I want to do that’.

November 10, 2025November 11, 2025 Garry ArnotLeave a comment

Since breaking into the British independent film scene with his excellent low-budget debut London to Brighton, writer and director Paul Andrew Williams has worked extensively in television and cinema from directing episodes of ITV dramas such as Broadchurch to crafting his own stories like 2021 revenge flick, Bull. His latest feature is Dragonfly, a social-realist drama with psychological thriller elements set in a working-class English town. When old-age pensioner Elsie (Brenda Blethyn) feels neglected by the nurses that visit her daily, her rough-around-the-edges neighbour Colleen (Andrea Riseborough) steps in to care for her, accompanied by her enormous bull terrier, Sabre. The women strike up an unlikely friendship but Elsie’s son John (Jason Watkins) worries that all is not as it seems.

I was fortunate enough to sit down with filmmaker Williams to discuss the piece…

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cinema

Film review: One Battle After Another

October 5, 2025 Garry ArnotLeave a comment

The challenging postmodern material of author Thomas Pynchon was first brought to the big screen just over a decade ago when Paul Thomas Anderson adapted stoner-noir tale Inherent Vice, and the filmmaker has once again looked to the novelist for inspiration in his latest feature. Loosely based on his 1990 book Vineland, action thriller One Battle After Another shifts the story to the chaotic landscape of modern-day America.

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cinema · EIFF25

Film review: On the Sea

August 17, 2025 Garry ArnotLeave a comment

A decade has passed since award-winning novelist Helen Walsh turned her attention to filmmaking, and after a foray into television last year, she has returned to writing and directing for the big screen. Her latest piece is erotic drama On the Sea which unravels within a fishing village of the north coast of Wales. Mussel farmer Jack (Barry Ward) is content in his stable yet unfulfilling marriage to Maggie (Liz White) and hopes that their teenage son Tom (Henry Lawfull) will join him and younger brother Dyfan (Celyn Jones) in the family hand raking business. However, as troublesome Scottish deckhand Daniel (Lorne MacFadyen) arrives in the tight-knit community, Jack confronts long suppressed emotions and risks everything he has worked for as an unexpected romance develops.

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cinema · EIFF25

Film review: Crushed

August 17, 2025January 6, 2026 Garry ArnotLeave a comment

No stranger to plying his trade within the circuit of genre festivals that showcase his low-budget efforts, indie writer and director Simon Rumley has taken his alternative sensibilities to Thailand for his next feature. Set in the leafy suburbs of Bangkok, religious thriller Crushed follows pastor Daniel (Steve Oram) who lives a quiet, comfortable life with his devoted wife May (May Nattaporn Rawddon) and Olivia (Margaux Dietrich), their 10-year-old daughter. However, following the mysterious disappearance of their cat Miss Kitty, Olivia is kidnapped and the family’s faith is tested when their distressing search exposes them to the depths of humanity.

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Berlin25 · cinema

Film review: Köln 75

March 22, 2025 Garry ArnotLeave a comment

On 24^th January 1975, American jazz musician Keith Jarrett performed to a sell-out crowd at Köln’s Opera House whilst playing a broken piano. The recording has since become the best-selling solo jazz album of all time, and the gig almost didn’t go ahead. Written and directed by Ido Fluk, period drama Köln 75 tells the amazing true story of how the evening came to be – the ‘scaffolding’ supporting the masterpiece as it is put in the film’s introduction.

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Berlin25 · cinema

Film review: If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

February 23, 2025December 1, 2025 Garry ArnotLeave a comment

A gear shift from her mumblecore beginnings, writer and director Mary Bronstein has joined forces with the team behind the Safdie productions for her latest feature If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. An anxiety-horror of sorts, the plot follows psychotherapist Linda (Rose Byrne) whose life takes a turn when her ceiling caves in from a flood in the apartment above. With her husband out of town on a work trip, she and her sick daughter (Delaney Quinn) move into a shabby motel, and things go from bad to worse when her vulnerable patient Caroline (Danielle Macdonald) goes missing.

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Berlin25 · cinema

Film review: Peter Hujar’s Day

February 22, 2025 Garry ArnotLeave a comment

The downtown scene of New York City in the 1970s was rich in culture, innovation and edge, with key figures such as Allen Ginsberg, Fran Lebowitz, and Andy Warhol pioneering an avant-garde community of creatives. Behind many of the iconic images of this time was photographer Peter Hujar, who mostly captured his subjects in a striking black and white. Inspired by a 2021 book of the same name, Peter Hujar’s Day is the latest piece from writer and director Ira Sachs that brings to life a tape recording that was discovered years later in amongst the archives of his work. Set entirely in his Manhattan apartment in December 1974, journalist Linda Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall) and Hujar (Ben Whishaw) have an in-depth conversation where he talks her through what he did the previous day.

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Berlin25 · cinema

Film review: Blue Moon

February 20, 2025September 9, 2025 Garry Arnot1 Comment

It’s been thirty years since the first collaboration between actor Ethan Hawke and filmmaker Richard Linklater, when they began working on the now beloved ‘Before’ trilogy. They have reunited for period piece Blue Moon which, like a lot of the director’s work, takes place across one day – or one evening in this case to be more specific.

Set almost entirely in a New York City bar in 1943, the historical snapshot plot centres around troubled lyricist Lorenz Hart (Hawke) after he attends the opening night of stage musical Oklahoma! on Broadway. Feeling bitter about his writing partner Richard Rodgers’ (Andrew Scott) success in his new duo with Oscar Hammerstein II, he distracts himself and everyone else around him by regaling them with stories of his infatuation for Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley), a 20-year-old student who he claims is his latest protégé.

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