strand

Once Upon A Time in Gaza , (Tarzan and Arab Nasser, 2025); Image courtesy of London Palestine Film Festival When I heard that the London Palestine Film Festival was showing a film with a plot involving a falafel shop and a drug operation, I was all ears. Add to the fact that it happens to be a black comedy directed by acclaimed filmmakers Tarzan and Arab Nasser, and I knew it would be worth the ride.  Bizarrely, the movie begins with a recent quote from Donald Trump musing on

Photo  by Brett Jordan via Flickr  (licensed under CC BY 2.0 ) Amongst the noise of Dylan and Presley, Elton and Williams, Deliver Me From Nowhere  lands quietly, unfurling more than just a tale of hedonistic, rockstar excesses, but rather, something much deeper. Springsteen is immortalised in an intimate, slow-paced, introspective take on the ghosts we carry, how they haunt our daily lives, and the ways we choose to escape them. Jeremy Allen White brings life and depth to Sc

H is for Hawk (2025) is a biographical drama film adapted by director Philippa Lowthorpe from the best-selling autobiography by the same name, published in 2014. The film follows Helen Macdonald, played by Claire Foy of The Crown fame, as she tends to a goshawk in the aftermath of her father’s death.

Nostalgia is a deeply human experience. But what happens when we romanticise the past to the point of reinventing it? In the film A Pale View of Hills, Kei Ishikawa invites the audience into the quiet world of Etsuko, a Japanese woman in England, whose bandages begin to unwrap as her youngest daughter, Niki, a young writer, itches to investigate her mother’s uncovered past.

Rachel Sennott’s ‘I Love LA’ was caught in a whirlwind of cast discourse even before it was released.

Photo by aj_aaaab on Unsplash A relative of mine recently said to me: “Films aren’t the same anymore, I don’t want to see anything at the cinema nowadays.” She worked in the film industry for 50 years. I had just finished asking her about her career and she reflected fondly, but to see her disappointment at what was once her scene saddened me. I thought back to the last time we had been to the cinema together. We saw The Naked Gun (2025), a legacy sequel to the original fra

The Voice of Hind Rajab (Kaouther Ben Hania, 2025); Image courtesy of London Palestine Film Festival When the world around you is burning and you feel all alone, what do you have left? What sustenance keeps you going? What cannot be taken from you?  Your voice.  Your voice is the most powerful tool you have when you are the voiceless figure, spoken for by those who do not know you. The Voice of Hind Rajab  (2025) acts as this protest, a protest against letting the voices of P

A good film can make you feel and ponder endlessly; this one made me feel absolutely nothing, and I left the theatre confused and head empty.

" BoJack Horseman in LEGO " by Ochre Jelly via Flickr (licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 ) One of my earliest memories as a child involves me sitting in front of our family TV, cereal bowl in hand, watching an episode of Little Einsteins . I remember patting along on my lap to get Rocket, the friendly spaceship, to launch, and hearing Vivaldi’s Morning Mood  orchestrated as the animated children on screen encouragingly asked me to identify the shapes in the scene. This was my f

The Death of Bunny Munro is a gritty tale dissecting father and son relationships with themes of  alcoholism, addiction and grief.