MAYER WAKEFIELD applauds Rosamund Pike’s punchy and tragic portrayal of a multi-tasking mother and high court judge
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Havana Glasgow Film Festival
Two of Cuba's great directors reflect on changing attitudes to sexuality on the island
Big ambition: Fatima of Fraternity Park
FIONA O CONNOR recommends an unflinching depiction of child sexual abuse and its aftershocks, set in a working-class Liverpool family
New releases from Paul Weller, Wet Leg, and Dino Saluzzi
PAUL DONOVAN relishes the spectacle of a 1950s detective in pursuit of a 500-year-old murder mystery
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
PROMOTING the cinema of social critique that Cuba is famous for, Fatima of Fraternity Park was a suitably challenging opening to the Havana Glasgow Film Festival (HGFF). Jorge Perugorria’s film, depicting the life of a transvestite male prostitute, typifies changing social attitudes on the island.
In cinema, it was spearheaded by director Tomas Alea, who also headed the Cuban Film Institute, and HGFF is celebrating his work along with that of Perugorria. The institute was founded in the immediate aftermath of the revolution to educate a largely illiterate population and is still going strong.
Looking at the issue of LGBT+ rights is a fascinating way to monitor evolving social attitudes since the revolution and the role of Cuban film in the ongoing dialectic. A landmark film is Alea’s Strawberries and Chocolate, from 1994, which lightheartedly equates sexuality to different flavours of ice cream.
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