Sugarcane (15)
Directed by Emily Kassie & Julian Brave NoiseCat
★★★★

 
THIS powerful and haunting debut documentary by Emily Kassie & Julian Brave NoiseCat investigates the abuse and missing children at a Native American residential school in Canada run by the Catholic Church. 
 
It follows the discovery in 2021 of evidence of unmarked graves at St Joseph’s Mission in British Columbia and the reluctance of the authorities to investigate properly. 
 
The filmmakers interview numerous survivors who attended St Joseph’s Mission, including Julian’s father, who slowly reveal the extent of the sexual abuse that was perpetrated there by Catholic priests along with their own heartbreaking experiences. This encompasses the babies that these priests fathered, which were incinerated, and the trauma that the children suffered at the hands of religious figures of authority.  
 
In some cases this abuse affected several generations of the same families who were all attacked by priests, allowed to get away with it while their traumatised victims suffered in silence. 
 
Kassie and NoiseCat deliver a detailed yet sensitive portrait as for nearly three years they lived alongside their participants feeling their pain and bearing witness to the bravery in their resilience and documenting their own investigation. Survivors’ testimonies prove heart-wrenching. 
 
The film also follows a Native American delegation as they head to the Vatican to meet Pope Francis to seek answers and an apology. 
 
It is a very hard watch and will leave you incensed at the injustice and how much the Catholic Church has to answer for. 

In cinemas, September 20

The Substance (18)
Directed by Coralie Fargeat
★★★★★

 
THRILLING writer-director Coralie Fargeat takes a sledgehammer to Hollywood and society’s obscene obsession with youth and beauty and the unattainable pressures they place on women in this audacious yet totally insane and jaw dropping body-horror flick. 
 
Demi Moore, in the performance of her career in which she bares body and soul, plays fading celebrity Elizabeth Sparkles who, in order to remain relevant, takes the Substance, a black market drug that creates a more perfect, more beautiful, younger version of herself. This is after her vile boss (a phenomenal Dennis Quaid who replaced Ray Liotta when he died), informs her over a prawn lunch (which will put you off shellfish for life) that “people always ask for something new, it’s inevitable and at fifty, well, it stops.”
 
Fargeat takes this toxic beauty culture, and the culture that cancels older women, and turns it on its head in this brutal yet visually stunning takedown. It’s smart, it’s visceral and literally stomach churning, and not for the faint-hearted. Think Death Becomes Her but taken to a whole new painful level, for the procedure is excruciating. 

Elizabeth gives birth to Sue (played brilliantly by Margaret Qualley), always seen from the male gaze, who becomes her biggest nightmare.  
 
It has a very 1980s look with a bold and colourful production design reminiscent of The Shining but by the shocking finale it feels more like The Elephant Man meets Carrie. 
 
This madly gory mindf*** is in fact a call to arms for women to become liberated from  patriarchal beauty constraints and empowered to become comfortable in their own skins. 

In cinemas, September 20