REBUILDING is a compassionate look at a community rocked by disaster with a wonderfully judged performance by O’Connor, though unfortunately it goes no deeper. Considering these natural events will become more and more common, and stronger, as the climate crisis intensifies, the film occupies a strange place between call to action and resignation to fate.
EFFI O BLAENAU is a terrific, timely picture of very modern, very preventable tragedies. That said, it is in no way tied to its era and milieu: as long as people think with hearts and not heads, and as long as we live in a world where blind chance can have the same impact as thoughtful choices, Effi will face these trials.
Marc Silver’s documentary MOLLY VS THE MACHINES takes an incredibly heavy and emotive subject and, while paying tribute to the human tragedy that inspired it, examines the social, legal, and material conditions that engendered it. The result does not wallow in exploitation or suggest hard-and-fast ways forward, but instead exposes the safeguarding cracks and legal loopholes that have caused so much harm in online spaces.
PUT YOUR SOUL ON YOUR HAND AND WALK is not a neutral film by any stretch of the imagination, but it should not be. Farsi’s documentary is urgent, heart-wrenching, and deeply personal, profiling a single life among the tens of thousands lost too soon.
A tender and moving exploration of grief and art’s power to heal, GHOSTLIGHT’s performances, script, and tone are judged with expert subtlety and emotional authenticity.
BOYS GO TO JUPITER captures the fact that, with the future looming in terrifying, undefined finality ahead of you, the real world often feels like an absurd adventure full of dead ends and the never-ending grind. If only our world were this colourful and whimsical.
STATIONED AT HOME is a tale of community, discovery, dreams, and togetherness, bearing witness to everyday resilience and dreams.
While THE SURFER does not deliver many surprises beyond the details of Cage’s character’s trials, humiliations, and triumphs, fans of Cage, Australian dramas, and a B-movie’s relish for the extreme will find it lives up to the promise of its premise with aplomb.
Although VERMIGLIO may be too gentle to impact viewers, the film is a beautiful neorealist throwback that shows the power of detailed, naturalistic characterisation.
BABYGIRL is festive family fun in the least traditional sense. Finding levity and grace in human weakness and the messiness of navigating human desire and dynamics, the film gives generational acting talents a phenomenal showcase that will ignite conversation, not offer the final word.
