SIMON PARSONS is discomfited by an unflichingly negative portrait of motherhood and its trials
A banquet of provocative film-making
RITA DI SANTO salutes the political choices made by the departing directors of this year’s Berlin Film Festival
PAUL FOLEY recommends an extraordinary double bill that packs a punch and leaves you reeling
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a play about AI that results in a deadening disconnect for its audience
SIMON PARSONS applauds an insightful state-of-the-nation play that explores the growing class divide in South Africa
MATTHEW HAWKINS pays tribute to the performance artist and costumier, Leigh Bowery
SIMON DUFF reviews a new composition by German composer and pianist Florian Weber that blurs the line between where improvisation ends and composition begins
New releases from The Jim Mullen Quartet, Caroline Kraabel/John Edwards, and Matthew Muneses/Riza Printup
THE Berlin Film festival jury got it right awarding the Golden Bear to Dahomey, a film that engages deeply with key topics of our time, but also displays a distinctive, humane cinematic style.
When it showed early in the festival, it had the look and smell of a Berlinale winner; an extraordinary hybrid of fiction and documentary in which Senegalese director Mati Diop gives voice to statues, allowing them to tell their own story.
The statues are 26 royal treasures stolen by French soldiers in 1892 and finally given back to the west African country of Benin in 2021. The supervisor touches the objects, made from wood and metal, with extreme care, while the people of Benin are exalted about their arrival.
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ANGUS REID deconstructs a popular contemporary novel aimed at a ‘queer’ young adult readership
A landmark work of gay ethnography, an avant-garde fusion of folk and modernity, and a chance comment in a great interview
ANGUS REID applauds the inventive stagecraft with which the Lyceum serve up Stevenson’s classic, but misses the deeper themes
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Colonial plunder goes home, chilly euthanasia, transsexual drug baron and venom’s end: The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Dahomey, The Room Next Door, Emilia Perez and Venom: The Last Dance
RITA DI SANTO casts an eye over the winners - and the overlooked films - from this year’s festival
RITA DI SANTO looks at what is on offer
ANGUS REID speaks to Tania Delgado, the director of Havana Film Festival, as Screen Cuba film festival kicks off in London