MAYER WAKEFIELD is entertained but let down by an audacious production that, sadly, doesn't ring true
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MARIA DUARTE recommends a harrowing film exploring the traumatic world of forced adoptions
Lucia Moniz and Maisie Sly in Listen
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by drama that, despite accomplished performances, cannot overcome an unfocused script
New releases from Sam Carter, Spell Songs and Les Thomas
KEN COCKBURN traces the one original language – that of the Yamnaya pastoral nomads – from which all European and Indian languages derive
PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by the debunking of the iconic British war hero
ALEX HALL recommends a searing panorama of our global predicament
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Directed by Ana Rocha de Sousa
ACTOR-turned-filmmaker Ana Rocha de Sousa shines a much-needed light on the practice of forced adoption in Britain in her powerful debut feature about an immigrant Portuguese couple’s tireless battle against the law to keep their three children.
Living on the outskirts of London, cleaner Bela (Lucia Moniz from Love Actually) and her husband — who’s on a zero-hours contract — Jota (Ruben Garcia) are struggling to make ends meet when their kids are taken away by social workers, who fear their seven-year-old deaf daughter Lu (Maisie Sly, star of the Oscar-winning short The Silent Child) is being physically abused by her parents.
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