Ben Cowles speaks with IAN ‘TREE’ ROBINSON and ANDY DAVIES, two of the string pullers behind the Manchester Punk Festival, ahead of its 10th year show later this month
Film round-up: April 10, 2025
The Star's critics ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARTIN HALL, MICHAL BONCZA, ANGUS REID reviews Holy Cow, One to One: John and Yoko, King of Kings, Panda Bear in Africa
pair
PAUL FOLEY is disappointed by a production that encourages the audience to laugh at rather than with the characters
Odysseus’s homecoming myth is treated as a factual story, with strong resonances for our contemporary world. This is an implicit anti-war film that has an urgent relevance, writes JOHN GREEN
PATRICK JONES recommends a vital anthology from Afghan and Iranian poets where the political and personal fuse into witness-bearing and manifesto-making
WILL STONE is impressed by Hania Rani who is already making a name for herself in the male-dominated world of modern classical music
MIK SABIERS enjoys the theatrical feminist six piece who have a lot of fun that the audience feeds off as the set rolls on
New releases from Ibex Band, Lucy Dacus, and Various Artists
Holy Cow (15)
Directed by Louise Courvoisier
★★★★
SHOT in France’s Jura region with non-professional actors, Louise Courvoisier’s debut feature is touching, elegiac and funny. A coming-of-age drama about friendship, integrity and post-industrial agriculture, it also reveals the agonies of making a wheel of Comté cheese.
A splendidly chaotic opening scene sets the tone. It features a cow sitting in a car, a man in a ragged vest lugging a beer barrel through a rural gala, and a drunken 18-year-old, Totone, performing a naked jig on a tabletop.
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