CHRIS SEARLE welcomes a new book that makes working class history come alive in a true story of human flesh and aspiration

The Promised Land (15)
Directed by Nikolaj Arcel
★★★★
IN 1755, an impoverished war hero aims to conquer and cultivate the harsh and barren Danish heath in the name of the king in exchange for a royal title and a manor in this slow-burning yet brutal period drama directed and co-written by Nikolaj Arcel.
Mads Mikkelsen delivers another searing performance as the brooding Captain Ludvig Kahlen, the illegitimate son of a wealthy landowner and his housemaid, who is determined to obtain what was denied him by birth.

MARIA DUARTE is entertained by a wry portrait of befuddled resistance to US authoritarianism

MARIA DUARTE recommends the powerful study of an underfunded reform school and the staff who struggle to do good

MARIA DUARTE cherishes the flashes of absurd humour and theme of community healing in a documentary set in a Soviet-era Black Sea sanatorium

MARIA DUARTE recommends a remarkable documentary, culled from 20 years of smartphone footage, that documents the trials of being a single parent